The Year After AKA The Year That Nothing Happened
by Angelycious
Summary: 1982 wasn't just the year after Lily and James died, the world mourned the loss of two great minds, celebrated the Death of a Dark Wizard and cheered the life of the Boy Who Lived. It was also the year that a new generation of Hogwarts students were starting their education, for the first time in decades, without the weight of certain death hanging over them. This is that story.
1. Chapter 1 You're A Witch

**Chapter One: You're a witch!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. All rights reserved and attributed to JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I own parts of the plot and certain characters added.**

**A/N: I'm not really writing this story for anyone. I used to be on a Harry Potter rp site and had to leave due to certain reasons. When I started feeling withdrawals from the hobby that took up most of my free time for half my life, Hogwarts Mystery and Bill Weasley, gave me the idea to write my own story. This is set in Bill Weasley's time, so most of the characters mentioned are of my own creation. Feel free to comment but I'm not really looking for Criticism, this is all for my own amusement and I'm only publishing it here because I don't want to leave it on my desk top. Feel free to PM me about it, because it does have a semi hashed out plot, so I mostly just want to see where it goes.**

* * *

"Ms Walker?"

Hannah Walker looked at the strange woman in the purple cloak on her doorstep. It was a particularly chilly night as she stood gobsmacked in her bathrobe. She wasn't expecting visitors, especially not this late in the afternoon. "Yes, that's me. Can I help you?" She hoped this woman wasn't selling anything, she certainly wasn't in the mood for door-to-door sales people at the moment. Everything had gone wrong today. Her eldest daughter Aurora was supposed to have her birthday party today, being Saturday, she'd thought that would be the best time to celebrate, only the poor dear had woken up in a pool of her own blood and been in a mood ever since. Apparently becoming a woman was not on her list of things to do this year.

"Apologies for being here so late in the day, Ms Walker, I'm afraid I had quite a few errands to run." The woman said, dipping her head slightly in apology. "Do you mind terribly if I come inside? There is an urgent matter I need to discuss with you."

Hannah stood where she was for a moment, making no move to allow the woman inside. She did look somewhat official, albeit odd, in her cloak. Given her husband's recent divorce suggestions, she figured this woman must be the lawyer. The thought steeled her, and she rolled her shoulders to straighten herself. "Ah, yes, of course. Please come in, Miss…"

The woman nodded and stepped into the townhouse, smiling slightly. "Professor actually, Professor McGonagall."

Hannah wasn't sure what to make of the title, it certainly didn't seem like it would refer to a lawyer, but what did she know really? "Apologies, Professor, you've caught me making tea. Would you like something to drink?"

The woman shook her head. She held herself high, her air carried the sternness she expected from an educator, someone who had been in the field for a long time. As a teacher herself, Hannah could appreciate that, though she was confused what all of this could be about. "Yes, thank you."

Hannah gestured to the lounge as she walked past the stairs to the first and second floors. The townhouse was only small, given they didn't have a lot of money left after the separation. Though Milton sent her money, it wasn't at all what she would have expected given his apparent position in some government job. She could hear Ellie and Logan moving around upstairs but could tell from the lack of movement that Rory was still sulking in her room. A real shame, she was sure she would have enjoyed her birthday. She busied herself making some tea for her unexpected guest as the pasta slowly simmered. All she had to do was add the sauce and dinner was served, but she certainly wasn't doing that until this stranger was gone. "Do you take sugar?"

"I do, thank you, Dear."

Hannah nodded and pulled her sugar jar out of the cupboard, dropping a teaspoon on both of the tea plates before walking quickly back into the small living room. "Here you are."

The woman took her tea eagerly and made short work of the milk and sugar. "I suppose I should be getting down to business."

Hannah took a seat across from the woman and sipped her own black tea. Something she had gotten used to over the last couple of years. Some days it had been her only salvation in her marriage. "Yes, I think you had."

The woman placed her tea on the table and leaned forward. "Ms Walker, I am Minerva McGonagall. I am here to provide you with some basic information and a crash course on your husband's family."

At this Hannah frowned. Her husband never spoke much about his family. She had always believed they had a terrible relationship, or she was sure she would have met them at some point. Having a stranger talk to her about her husband's family, a husband she would soon no longer have, was a little jarring. "Excuse me?"

Minerva nodded again. "Yes, your husbands' family. You see, your Husband was, or rather, is, a wizard."

Hannah's tea cup clinked heavily against her plate. "What are you talking about?"

"Milton McKinnon is a wizard. He can perform magic and attended a wizarding school called Hogwarts."

Hannah blinked at the information. She had always had an open mind, she had to as a teacher and she certainly liked her fair share of fantasy books, but this seemed a little too far to go with something like this. "A wizard?"

Minerva nodded gravely. "It is unfortunate that he could not come and deliver the news himself, unfortunately he is currently undertaking some very important Ministry work and was unavailable, he asked me to send his apologies." The look on her face told Hannah that the woman was very much displeased with this development.

Unsure what to make of any of this, the frown on her face increasing, Hannah shook her head. "What is the Ministry, my husband holds a minor position in local government."

Minerva shook her head. "He did when he was still living with you, as a muggle, you were not privy to certain aspects of his life. When you both agreed to no longer share residence, your husband transferred to the magical government and quickly moved up the ranks. He's about mid-tier now."

"That can't be true. I would know. He would have told me he was a wizard. We had no secrets when we were younger." She was finding all of this difficult to believe and placed her cup on the table beside Minerva's, so she could truly show her displeasure with the accusations.

"I'm afraid not. Had your husband mentioned this to you he would have been breaking one of our world's greatest laws. The Statute of Secrecy is extremely important to maintaining the segregation of our world."

Hannah shook her head. "No, this makes no sense. My _soon-to-be-ex-husband_," she made sure to emphasise the fact, "was a terrible liar. He couldn't keep a secret to save his life. Are you really telling me that he was able to hide this from me for _twelve years_?"

Minerva sympathised with the woman. This wasn't the easiest thing to find out. She remembered the man in question, Milton McKinnon. Not particularly gifted magically, but he was a determined student, and made up for his lack of magical prowess with his aggressive studiousness. It was really not at all surprising that he was a Ravenclaw. Though marrying a muggle had been a surprise. As a muggle-born, Minerva had seen him immerse himself completely in magic, she was surprised then to discover that he'd wed a muggle, not that she thought there was anything wrong with that of course. Her mother and father had been a mixed marriage after all. "I'm afraid he did, Ms Walker. The only reason I'm telling you now is that your children, Aurora, Logan and young Eleanor, are all considered halfblooded witches and wizards. Aurora is certainly magical and it's also likely that Logan and Eleanora will be as well."

Hannah didn't know what to say to any of this, it was all really hard to believe. Though, if what the woman was saying was true, and honestly, she had thought about this before, then some of the things her children had done over the years was starting to make sense. "I suppose, if I really think about this, that there is some possibility to what you're saying."

Minerva leaned forward and picked up her tea again. "Has Aurora, or indeed Logan and Eleanora, ever done anything to make you question what you'd seen?"

"Well, yes. For when Rory was four, her father had just put her breakfast to the side on the table, so he could go and find out why Ellie was crying. It was well out of the way of her reach." She said, thinking back. "When I walked into the room to take over, it was sitting in front of her again. Mil had sworn blind he'd put the bowl on the table. I just thought he'd forgotten." She said, frowning in remembrance. There had been other instances too, like when Logan had been hysterical and the windows in his room had blown out and when Ellie was a baby and her blanket had randomly changed colour. Mil hadn't said anything at the time, but she'd thought he'd seemed somewhat rattled. "I thought I was going crazy, or maybe my kids were possessed."

Minerva shook her head. "Not an uncommon reaction." She admitted, taking another sip of her tea. "I've come to inform you that Aurora has a placement in the local wizarding school, should you accept."

All of this was a bit much to take in. Hannah sighed. "I'm not sure I want her to go to a wizarding school…"

"She'll learn from the very best, and her magic is volatile at this age. Learning to control it is very important."

Hannah shrugged. "I'm sure that's true, but…"

Minerva held up a hand and shook her head. "Take a few days to think about it, talk to your husband and your daughter. It's as much their decision as yours. I should warn you though, magical children don't always fare well in a society where they are forbidden from using their magic."

Hannah nodded, it seemed she had a lot to consider. "Will I be able to get into contact with you later?"

"Your husband has my details, I've already let him know I've come by, so I would expect a visit from him soon."

Hannah nodded.

"You're taking this very well for a muggle."

Hannah's frown increased. "You've used that word before, what does it mean?" She asked, her teacup growing heavy in her hands.

Minerva winced slightly, she'd been forgetting her manners entirely. "I do apologise, a muggle is a non-magical person, such as yourself. Your husband was a muggle-born, a wizard born to non-magical parents. Your children are all considered half-bloods, which is the term for those who do not fit the other two. Purebloods have a long history of magical ability, some dating back hundreds, if not thousands of years, though no one really can tell anymore."

Hannah shook her head to stop herself. "I need to think about all of this. I'll let you know."

Minerva nodded. "Of course, I will leave you to your thoughts." She said, standing slowly ad placing the cup and saucer on the table. "I'm so sorry this is how this conversation happened, but I'm sure Milton can fill in any blanks you may have. I look forward to hearing what you have to say and sorry again for taking up so much of your time." She headed towards the door and Hannah followed her. "Thanks for the tea."

Hannah smiled. "Of course, I don't starve guests."

Minerva nodded firmly to her before making her way out. Hannah closed the door roughly as the woman left and leant against it, suddenly exhausted. Milton was certainly going to have to explain to her what just happened, this was all a complete delusion, surely. As much as she wanted to believe that though, many of the things the woman had said were starting to help Hannah connect some unconnected dots in her head after a long time. And she thought that maybe, she was actually beginning to see the bigger picture for the first time ever.

"I need something stronger than tea."

TYA

"Milton, yes, thank you for being here, I definitely would have preferred you had been here the other day, but I suppose now is better than never."

Milton had the grace to look slightly ashamed at the harsh tone Hannah was addressing him with. He'd never really been able to stand against her when she used it, mostly because he knew he was in the wrong whenever he heard it. "Sorry, Hannah, I really was busy. To be honest, I just thought I could do it on another day."

Hannah shook her head. She wasn't quite sure she believed him, and now that she knew he had been keeping secrets from her, she began to wonder if he really was as shitty a liar as she'd always believed. "Just… you're here now. That Professor woman left me with a lot of things to think through and you seem to be the one holding the key to the information treasure trove."

Milton stepped into the living room and sighed, hanging his jacket on the back of the door. As he looked around he frowned. "Rory at school?"

Hannah nodded. She was still in her bathrobe because she'd given up trying to dress for her husband when he'd asked for a divorce. They'd both seen it coming, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. "Of course, I needed to talk to you before I said anything to her. It will be good to finally have an explanation to everything mind you."

Milton sighed again. "I really couldn't tell you, you know that, right?"

Hannah tucked her hands into her pockets and shrugged. "Not important right now, Love, we've business to discuss."

Hannah had let the school know she wasn't coming in today, it was too big of a conversation to be had whilst the kids were still home. "Do you want some breakfast?"

Milton took a moment to think before shrugging. "Alright, I haven't eaten yet, thanks."

Hannah nodded and half-heartedly gestured for him to follow her to the kitchen. "'spose this explains why you never spoke about your parents."

Milton sighed. "Partially. To be honest most of my family is dead."

Hannah gasped and whirled around. "Mil, oh God, I'm so sorry."

He shrugged. "Nothing to be done about it, they got themselves into it. I got out by marrying you, I warned them to be careful, but I was the one who married a civ, so they weren't too happy." His family had wanted nothing more than for Milton to follow the footsteps of his brothers into the army. Of course, given he was the youngest and his brothers were older than him, their deaths had essentially chosen his path for him. Not that he really would have picked to join the army anyway. He'd always intended on staying in the magical world. Of course, that hadn't happened either. "It was a long time ago."

Hannah nodded, the pain for the new information flashing across her face before she turned back and headed into the kitchen. "Sit down, I already have some bacon sizzling." She opened her fridge and pulled out the carton of eggs before sitting them on the counter. She looked over her shoulder to see Milton perched eagerly on the side of the chair, the place he used to sit when they still lived together. "Do you want your usual?"

Milton nodded. He didn't think he'd had his wife's cooking since that night on Hallowe'en just a few months ago. A sudden and horrifying end to an even more horrifying war. One he'd never been able to talk about and one he hoped never to have to again. Though he was sure Rory would ask questions should she go to Hogwarts and read about it all.

Hannah smiled over her shoulder. Despite everything, she still loved him. They just hadn't worked out and given this new information, she was sure she was discovering why. "I don't have any mushrooms; do you want baked beans instead?"

Milton shook his head and Hannah nodded, continuing to heat up the pan. "You know, I suppose this is a good thing, in a way." She started, watching Milton in the mirrored splashback for his reaction. "I was beginning to think I was going mad with the things that happened around here. The other day, the tv shorted out when Ellie threw a tantrum."

Milton barked out a laugh. "I did that once, it was one of those really old tv's you know, with the box. Well, it was new then. I got upset about something one of my brothers had done and the TV went up in smoke. They all thought it was just the TV, wasn't until much later we discovered the truth."

Hannah smiled. "I guess that would have been hard to deal with, especially since you had no foundation." She said, only slightly admonishing him. She could understand that he couldn't say anything, but the least he could have done was not leave her there alone thinking her kids were possessed. "Were you close with your family?"

"No, not really. I don't think they ever understood me. Or my abilities." He'd never been the strongest wizard, but he made up for it with enthusiasm.

"I'm sorry you went through that." Hannah placed the pan on the hobb and dropped the eggs in carefully. She moved the bacon off and shifted them onto plates for the two of them. She'd not had her breakfast yet either. "Can you grab the cheese out of the fridge for me?"

Milton carefully moved around the kitchen to the fridge and peered inside to find the cheese. "It appears you are out of cheese." He straightened and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I'll go and get some cheese, I'll only be a moment."

Hannah frowned. "Mil, Tesco is a good ten minutes away, this will all be cooked by then."

Milton smiled. "Trust me." He stepped out the door and Hannah rolled her eyes. She was clearly just going to have to keep his breakfast heated for as long as possible. He'd be gone probably at least twenty-five minutes and that's assuming her remembered exactly where the cheese isle was. However, not a second after she'd had the thought, the front door opened, and Milton reappeared with a packet of grated cheese in hand.

Her mouth dropped open as he walked through the living room and into the kitchen. "What?"

"Magic, Darling. I can use it when I'm not around you."

Hannah blinked. "But, what, you conjured up the cheese?"

Milton laughed. "Don't be silly, of course not. I apparated to my apartment and grabbed my cheese."

"Apparated?"

Milton nodded. "It's one of the many forms of wizard transportation. My preferred style, admittedly, I had to relearn after the ten years I spent in the muggle world."

Hannah had no idea what he was talking about but placed it on her ever-growing list of things she would be speaking to him about. "Alright, well, these eggs are done, so have at."

Milton grinned almost gleefully as she placed the eggs on the plate beside the bacon and worked on the tomatoes. He quickly sliced open the cheese and served himself a generous helping over his eggs and a smaller helping over his bacon. Then he put a small smattering of cheese on top of Hannah's bacon. She didn't like it on her eggs.

"Thanks, now for the tomatoes." They only needed a light sizzling, she preferred them this way, Milton preferred them a little more fried, but she knew he wouldn't complain. He never did bite the hand that fed him. It was one of the things she'd loved about him.

Milton took the plates and placed them on the small table before sliding back into his spot. Hannah sat across from him. She reached into the cupboard behind her and pulled out two mugs. The kettle had a home on the table this morning and the water was already hot. "Tea?"

"Always." Milton and Hannah both preferred black tea, a habit they had somehow managed to pick up from each other. "Ask me anything."

Hannah nodded, but settled for letting herself go through the paces before she said anything. Truly her most pressing concern was the woman, the Professor who'd shown up out of the blue. "So, she was telling the truth?"

Milton nodded, he knew who she was talking about. Minerva had already spoken to him about what had happened the other night, letting him know he should go and see his wife, perhaps explain things to her. "Minerva said you reacted well, like a weight had been lifted from your mind."

Hannah bit into some of her bacon. "Well, it's certainly not every day that one learns one's child is a wizard… uh, witch, I suppose." And up until a few moments ago, she still wasn't sure she'd even believed it, but, for whatever reason, she really couldn't deny it now. "I always knew she was special… all of them."

Milton snorted. "I always told you they were, you just took my meaning as something entirely different."

Hannah rolled her eyes. "Well, how was I to know my husband was living a lie, this isn't bewitched, you're certainly not Samantha."

Milton shook his head. "No, it's not. Magic doesn't work like that, not really."

"Do you have like a staff or something?"

Milton took a sip of his morning tea. "Nothing quite so intimidating," he said, carefully withdrawing his wand from its holster. "This is my wand."

Hannah reached a hand out for it, before snatching it back with a frown. "Can I touch it? It won't hurt me will it?"

He shook his head and held it out to her. "It would just feel like a normal stick to you, but anyone like me, with magic, would be able to tell what it was."

Hannah reached for the wand again, when she touched it she was only slightly disappointed by the truth of what Milton had said. She held it in front of her and studied it madly. It was a light brown colour, the colour of wood she supposed, and it possessed several intricate carvings around where she assumed it would be held and a small knob on top, almost as a way of keeping the wand from simply slipping out of his grasp. "It's really nice."

Milton shook his head. "You don't really appreciate it for what it is, Rory, Logs and Ellie will each get something like this when they go to Hogwarts." He said, not seeing the look of apprehension on his wife's face. "This wand is made of Redwood with a unicorn hair core," he said, turning it over in his hand. "It's 10 and a half inches and considered to be of pliant flexibility."

"What does all that mean?"

Milton shrugged. "I never studied wand lore, so I couldn't say, it's served me well though. I had to get the wand core replaced about two years ago because it had died with disuse."

Hannah frowned. "Does that happen often?"

Milton shrugged. "Ollivander said it was because it had become depressed. Not sure about that. Cost me 40 galleons though, so I was glad it was worth it."

"What's galleons?" All of this casual information was giving her a bit of a headache and it was all becoming much more real. This whole other world had to exist if he was able to talk about it so casually without thinking about it. She wasn't sure she would be able to keep up with such an elaborate lie.

"Wizarding money. Galleons, sickles and knuts." He pulled a handful out of his pockets. His _emergency money_, the rest of course was sat in his vault. He picked up the biggest coin, gold and sat it on the table. "This is a galleon, its about… 5 pounds I should think." He moved to the next coin, silver this time and about half the size of the galleon. "This is called a sickle, its about the equivalent to 30 p, give or take." Lastly, he dropped the smallest coin on the table, bronze it looked like and pointed to it. "Knut, its equivalent to about 1 p, not much to buy with these, but you make do."

Hannah looked at them curiously. "Suppose we'll be needing to buy a money pouch or something."

"There's 17 Sickles in a Galleon, and 29 Knuts in a Sickle, meaning there are 493 Knuts to a Galleon." He finished, tapping his finger on the table in thought. "Yes, I think that's right."

Hannah nodded. "Math never was your strength."

Milton shook his head. "Certainly not. I only took the good classes in school. Didn't bother with Arithmancy or Ancient Runes, or Divination for that matter. I wasn't a huge fan of the Alchemy classes either, but I mostly took them for credits."

Hannah had to shake her head again. She'd been eating her food as she was listening but hadn't noticed until now that she'd been munching on air for a good thirty seconds. Rolling her eyes and moved on to her eggs and sighed. "I don't think I'm going to be able to understand any of this."

Milton packed the coins back into his pocket and smiled softly. "You've many years to get it, no one expects you to pick it up this quickly, the important thing is to try and you're luckier than some, you've got me to help you wade through."

Hannah nodded. "That's good at least, to be honest I was worried I was losing it, still am."

Milton pushed the rest of his breakfast away and finished his tea. "Now, let me tell you a little bit more about Hogwarts, I know you've felt apprehensive about this, but honestly, Rory will love it."

Hannah nodded and pushed her food away too. "You're not wrong."

Milton pulled her towards the lounge as he carefully pulled a couple of books out of the bag she hadn't noticed he'd been carrying. "I brought some visual stimulus for you, in case you have any other questions."

TYA

When Aurora walked in the door, her siblings trailing in behind her, she knew something was up. Both of her parents, who usually preferred to sit in separate chairs, were huddled over a group of books. Which, on its own was strange enough, but coupled with the closeness and whispers that were passing between them, as well as one or two gasps of shock, she knew there was something.

"Daddy!" Ellie and Logan, dropping their bags at the foot of the stairs, dived over the backs of the lounge and flung themselves into his arms. Her father grinned and crushed them into giant hugs as her mother graciously pulled aside so they could lay all over him. It had been a couple of weeks since they'd seen him.

"Hi Daddy." Rory, much more eloquent than either of her siblings rolled her eyes at her siblings. Since she was apparently becoming a woman now, she supposed she needed to start acting like one. She noticed her mother throw her a knowing look but ignored it and instead draped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. "I didn't think you'd be here."

He carefully tried to extricate himself from Logan and Ellie, with little success before chuckling slightly and bringing Rory around to face him. "I dropped in to talk with Mum, how are you, I heard about Saturday."

Rory stared at her mother in horror, the answering laugh enough to make her cheeks pinken in embarrassment over her father knowing. "She wasn't supposed to tell you about that."

Her father smiled softly and rubbed his hand slowly up and down her arm in comfort. "Don't be embarrassed honey, it happens to all women eventually. You shouldn't be embarrassed about it, it's very natural."

"She said she's not ready for her life to take a drastic turn." Her mother said, shaking her head. Rory had the feeling something else was going on that she wasn't aware of.

Her father seemed to pick up on that and smiled. "Well, you'll be in for a couple of surprises before the day is over, Pud, your mother and I have something we need to tell you."

Logan perked up and looked between his parents and Rory. "Ooooh, are you in trouble, Rory, did you do a bad thing?"

Rory rolled her eyes are her brother. "You're one to talk, he nearly got into a fight today!"

Her mother gasped and immediately pulled Logan onto her lap. "What?! Logan, Mister, tell me what happened."

Rory tuned her mother and brother out and Ellie was quite content to lay between the pair with her head in her father's lap as he stroked her hair. "Dad, what's going on?"

Her parents exchanged a look, and both turned to look at the stairs. Her father nodded and carefully moved Ellie's head before standing up and taking hold of her hand. "Why don't we go up to your room to talk?"

Rory looked at her mother who nodded before turning back to admonish her brother. "Alright." She didn't know what any of this was about, but she really wanted to know. "I just cleaned it yesterday." She added, leading the way up the stairs. It didn't take her long to get there, her door was right on the landing and she swiftly kicked it open. True to her word, her room was neat, only cluttered with all of her favourite things. "Mum got me a new set of books for my shelves, see?"

Her father roamed his eyes over the additions, making note of what she already had for the next time he bought her a gift. "Oh, the Secret Garden, you'll love that."

Aurora grinned and jumped onto her bed. "What do we need to talk about, Dad?"

He breathed out a sigh and Rory frowned. "Well, to be honest, your heritage."

"What about it?" Rory didn't know anything about her heritage. Not from her dad anyway, because he never spoke about it. She could only assume it was because he wasn't close to his family, but she wasn't sure what might have brought this on. "I don't know anything about your family, Daddy." She tucked her legs up to her chest and leaned her head onto her knees. She was still in her uniform and shrugged off her jumper to make herself more comfortable.

Her father took a seat at the foot of his bed and let out a long breath. "There is a very good reason why I don't talk about them, Honey, and one of them is because we didn't get along." He started, as Rory watched him intently. "When I was a child, I was distant from my parents because they considered me a bit of a freak. Sometimes things just happened around me that I had no control over and no one could explain it." Rory sat up a little straighter, she wanted her father to know that he had her full attention. Even if she didn't know what was going on. "What I'm trying to tell you is that you and me, we're the same, but we're different to other people."

Rory sniffed slightly. "What are you saying, Daddy."

"I'm trying and clearly failing, to tell you that you're a witch." He said, sitting back against her wall to watch her reaction.

Rory smiled. "Don't be silly, Dad, witches don't exist."

He bit his lip and nodded to himself. "Here," he said, moving something from inside his sleeve and producing a stick for her to see.

Rory raised an eyebrow. "What is it?" She asked, holding her hand out to hold it as he gestured her to do.

"It's a wand." He said, closing her hand over it and holding it there.

Rory sucked in a breath, the wand almost felt warm, like there was a lifeforce pulsing beneath it. "What is it doing?" She asked, holding it closer to her face so she could observe it. This was not the kind of thing she was expecting out of today. "How can this be a wand, it looks like a stick."

"Just feel it, can you feel the heat, almost like it's trying to reach out to you?" At her nod, he smiled. "That's what it is. This is my wand, it helps me to channel my magic so that I can perform spells, because I am a wizard. Your siblings will have this power too."

Rory thrust the wand away from her. "It feels weird. How do you know this stuff?"

"Because I went through the same thing. The difference is, you have me to help you through this, whereas I didn't have anyone because I was the only person in my family who was like me."

Rory dropped her legs. "So… you can do magic, can you show me?"

He frowned. "I can, but unfortunately I'm not allowed to do magic here because we're surrounded by non-magical people. But I promise, it's true. I even have an official letter and everything if you want to see it?"

She nodded, and he quickly fished her letter out of his pocket. _Miss A. Walker – McKinnon, the third bedroom, 56 Chichester St, London. _The envelope was course and rough and Rory noted that the hand-writing was not from someone she was familiar with, so she didn't think either of her parents had written it. This handwriting was much to neat for her mother and too cursive for her father. She often found it hard to read her mother's tight scrawl and her father usually wrote in block letters. "Who wrote this?"

She looked to see her father smiling calmly at her. "Why not open it to find out?"

Shrugging, Rory flipped it over and stared momentarily at the wax seal. Did anyone even really use wax anymore? It all seemed so strange to her. The seal was red, or perhaps maroon was a better colour though she didn't recognise the crest it held. Carefully, trying not to destroy the seal, she pried it off the paper and pulled the letter out. Just like the front with her address, the letter was written in a green hand she didn't recognise.

* * *

HOGWARTS SCHOOL _of_ WITCHCRAFT _and_ WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,  
Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

Dear Ms. Walker - McKinnon

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

* * *

Rory blinked at the letter. She certainly didn't remember applying for any schools. "Did you apply in my name, Dad?"

He shook his head. "No, all magical children in Great Britain have their names down from the moment they're born. Of course, I could say nothing, on the off chance I broke the statute of secrecy."

Rory frowned slightly. "But what about my friends? I don't want to leave them behind."

"You won't have to, Sweetie, at least not completely. You can still see them on holidays and when you're not at Hogwarts. It will be hard, but not impossible."

"Do I have to go?" This was all such a huge revelation. Learning she had magic and was going to have to go to a different school was crazy. "Why can't I see my friends on a weekend, or after school?"

Her father frowned at this. "Hogwarts is a boarding school, Honey, you live there."

"Without Mum!? How can I go to a school without Mum?!" She asked, rearing back on her arse to lean into the headboard. "I can't leave Logan and Ellie!"

Trying to calm his daughter, Milton shushed her softly. "Calm down, Honey, I'm not going to force you to go. All I want is for you to think about it. You still have over a month to fully decide. If you want to go, let me know and we can contact the school. If you flip that page over, you'll see that they have a list of supplies you'll need. I've also brought over my own small selection of old school books if you wanted to have a look too." He said. "I would never want you to do something you don't want to do, but, Sweetie, I strongly encourage you to at least check it out. If the worst happens, you can change your mind and I'll investigate home-schooling for you, though I do warn you, if that happens, you'll have to come and live with me since you'll be learning magic and you can't do magic in front of muggles."

Rory calmed down and nodded. All she wanted was to be able to think about this, after all, it was a really big decision!


	2. Chapter 2 Family Excursion

**Chapter Two: Family Excursion**

**a/n: I just want to address a couple of comments I've come across, though honestly since I am writing this for me, I'm not taking them too much to heart, but I guess I can say that yes, this is quite divergent from canon. In many ways this story will handle some of the things I think JKR did wrong, differently. Like not having an onsite counsellor, or not telling magical children about their abilities, because we definitely know that was a thing. McGonagall had to hide her magic, as did Merope Gaunt and yes, I realise this was some time before the beginning of the books, but we know that it sets a precedent. Likewise, I chose to take the route of Dumbledore/Riddle and have a professor present when the truth is revealed to the non-magical family. It was mostly done this way because, as I noted, the father does not live with the children and so was not in a position to enlighten them. Please feel free to continue commenting however because I will readily admit to not having read the books since about 2007 so a lot of this is purely from memory. Some might be fanfic rules, I honestly don't remember.**

* * *

It had taken nearly an entire month of back and forth chats with her father, in addition to a whole weekend spent with him, for Rory to finally make a decision. In her heart, she knew she was going to love Hogwarts, but she was scared that she'd get so caught up in everything she would forget about everything else. It was a tough thought! She flicked through her father's books numerous times and asked him all sorts of questions about magic and what it meant, what he enjoyed the most and what he thought she should do. In return, he'd told her more about his family, his lack of support from his parents and his complete immersion into the culture. He even admitted to her, after some hesitation, that one of the reasons he wasn't around as much was because he'd missed magic. "But you really love us, right?" She'd asked. He, of course, confirmed that he did and that he still deeply loved their mother too, only his magic was as much a part of him as they were, and refusing to use it was hard for him.

Her father had been coming over more often than she remembered him doing, and she assumed that had a lot to do with her. As it was this time though, it was a good thing, because she knew she needed to let him know she'd decided to attend Hogwarts, at least to see what all the fuss was about. She walked down the stairs with her, admittedly now half destroyed, letter in her hands. "Daddy?"

He immediately looked up from where he was tickling her brother on the couch and smiled. "Yes, Sweetie?"

Her mother was in the kitchen making dinner and as soon as she heard Rory's voice, she stuck her head around the wall. "Have you made a decision, Honey?"

Rory nodded and continued down the stairs to stand in the living room. "I decided I want to go, at least to see what it's like."

The smile on her father's face made Rory's own smile increase and she laughed with him. "If you decide you don't like it, I promise we'll talk about it, alright?"

Rory nodded. "I know, that's part of why I agreed. I don't want to say no straight away, because I want to give myself a chance. Maybe I'll hate it, but I won't know until I try."

"That's very level headed of you, Dear."

"Thanks, Mum."

"As soon as I get home tonight I'll let the school know."

Rory grinned. She was of course excited about this, as much as she had been resistant to it, she couldn't deny the awe she'd felt at looking at her father's old school books. It was a whole new world for her that she couldn't wait to explore. New friends and new subjects? It was all so terribly exciting. "I wonder what house I would be in, can you explain them to me, Dad?"

He laughed. "Well, I'm certainly not as adept at this as the sorting hat is, but I can give it a go. How about I start with my house?" He asked, moving Logan to sit up so Rory could join them on the lounge.

Rory vaulted over the back of the lounge and folded the letter carefully into her pocket. "Go, go!"

"Well, as I said before, I was sorted into Ravenclaw, which is the blue house." He said, gesturing to the blue tie he was wearing that she hadn't noticed before. "Kept the colours you can see." He laughed. "My house favours the witty and eager learns of the world. Those who follow academics and creative flair all at once. We're wise and clever and true to our word most of the time." He said, shaking his head. "Most of the Ravenclaws I knew, most of my friends, were all very different. Of course, there are stereotypes and we weren't without them, mostly considered bookworms and geniuses, which, let me tell you, was definitely not the case for all of us. I am a perfect example of someone who is not naturally gifted, but works hard for what I want, something I truly believe was well looked upon by the Founder, Rowena Ravenclaw." He said, thinking carefully. "I guess you could say our individuality was what set us apart, much like Hufflepuff, we strove to achieve our own ends, and often came to conclusions many didn't think of, whether that was inside or outside of the box."

Rory nodded. She liked the sound of that. She didn't know much about the houses, because the dew books her father had shown her, didn't really mention specifics of the houses, only who was in them. "What about Gryffindor?" She asked. She'd heard it was the bravest house, but wanted to know more beyond that.

"Well, many of the Aurors I know in the Ministry are Gryffindors. Not all of them of course, but it is a very complimentary job to the sort of people Gryffindors tend to be. Courageous, brave and determined, I think most of the school yard duels happened when they were arguing with each other. I do believe both Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster, were Gryffindors. I didn't have many friends in the house mind you, so I don't know too much about them. Quite a few of my school mates did join a group called the Order of the Phoenix, I believe a lot of them were Gryffindors." He said, frowning in thought. "It's not a surprise, they had a reputation of being loud, obnoxious and full of bravado. Whenever there was food in the Great Hall, everyone else was pretty quiet, but they were always the loudest."

Rory snickered softly. She could tell her father seemed displeased with the thought. "I'll try and not be put in that house then." She told him sincerely.

"Don't worry too much about that. Though there are families in existence who have disowned members of their family for that, I can't say that I would care. You're only the second of our family to go there, it's hardly a family tradition."

Logan crawled over to lean against them. "What about the others, um… Huffpuff and Snakies?"

Milton nodded. "Hufflepuff are the yellow house, kind, loyal and hardworking. If you wanted to get anything done, take a Hufflepuff with you I used to say. My best friend Ted was a Hufflepuff, we used to go everywhere together as kids. He was the kindest guy I knew and balanced me when I was trying to cope with all the wizarding world effects. His family were a lot more accepting than mine and I spent a few good Summers there." He rolled his shoulders. "I never really got to know many of them, I was always too busy pulling Ted around by the tie. Always willing to help me with my research, until he got with that Slytherin girl. Something Black. I don't remember." He said. "Didn't see him much after that, though I heard he went into the news when we graduated."

Rory smiled. "You should tell me more about your school adventures but tell me more about the Slytherins!"

"Well, I'm going to be honest. Most of them were snobs and hated anyone who was like me." He started, rolling his eyes at memories of the bullies. "Some of them took particular interest in hunting down and _playing with_ those of us who didn't come from magical families, like myself and Ted." He told them. "Some of the Gryffindors used to take offense and there would be fighting everywhere, but for the most part I kept to myself." Slytherins weren't all bad, he knew. But they carried a bad rep, most especially from people who followed He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. "They were stereotyped to be ruthless and cunning, which was mostly true, but they were also ambitious and devoted to the cause, or to their reputation. One of the worst things you could do to a Slytherin, especially a snobby pure-blooded one, was to in some way besmirch them or their family name."

Rory hummed as she listened to her father talk. She was really excited to know about the houses and couldn't wait to find where she would be placed. "Did you like your house?"

He nodded. "Absolutely. I had to work hard to get where I wanted to go, and I was always behind because most of the others had a chance to study at home, where I didn't, but I never seemed to get teased for that. Most of my housemates were quite helpful and my dorm was always quiet whenever I needed some time to study." He said, smiling fondly at the memory. "One of the guys, Luther, I think, managed to sneak Fir… you know what, let's not talk about that right now." He said, suddenly remembering his daughter was only eleven years old.

Rory giggled, seeing the story for what it was, something that he shouldn't have been doing. "You'll tell me eventually, right?"

"Absolutely. Now, I think you should head into the kitchen, smells like dinner is nearly ready."

TYA

Rory was ever so excited. She didn't think she'd ever been quite so excited in her life. Her Hogwarts Acceptance letter had been sent off to the school, noting she would be attending come September, which meant she now had to buy all the supplies she needed. She had read and reread her supplies list dozens of times and her parents had through everything her father owned to see what would need to be replaced whilst they were there. She definitely needed all new books, since most of the ones her father used were out of date now, or falling apart from use, but some of it was still in good condition, so she was looking forward to all the things she would need to buy. She had never really thought of shopping as being a fun activity, but this was different, she was going to see magic for the first time, which was really exciting!

Her whole family was coming, because her dad worked at the Ministry, apparently in the Wizengamot Administration Services, he was able to get permission pretty quickly for their mother to accompany them. It was all so very exciting, and she couldn't wait to see what they came up with, after all, she was going to be seeing magic, which was all so new to her. "Come on, let's go. I don't want to be late!"

It didn't take them long to get to the Leaky Cauldron. Another five minutes to convince her mother that there definitely was an invisible pub and then another few minutes to wade through the full bar, when they got to the war on the other side of the pub, Rory was so wound up from all the excitement that she almost screamed in frustration that there was yet one more obstacle in her way. Her father laughed at her, stepping up between her and the wall and produced his wand. "Hold on a tick."

Rory watched with bated breath as the wall opened when her father tapped a pattern on the wall. Slowly the wall kept pushing and pulling itself aside to reveal a long cobble stoned path filled with people, pets and stores of all types. She saw a purple sign that seemed to advertise robes and a sign that changed from a cauldron to scales each time she looked at it. On the right there was a giant bookstore. She squealed in delight and immediately rushed away from her family into the crazed mass of bodies.

"Rory! Wait!"

She wasn't sure who was calling her, she was much too excited. Flitting from wall to wall, Rory couldn't wait to get into one of these shops and see what she had been missing out on for eleven years. Of course, the first place she went was the sweet stall, tucked into the side of the street. There were sweets all over the stall and she sifted through them gladly. She didn't recognise most of them, Bertie Botts beans, Fizzing Whizzbees, Skiving Snackboxes, Butterscotch toffees. She thought she might find some Aniseed balls or maybe some Sour Apple Shoelaces, her favourite.

"Hello, Darlin' looking for something in particular?" A man spoke, his voice deep and throaty, like he didn't talk often.

Rory looked up at the man behind the stall and smiled. "I'm not sure! This is all really new to me!"

The man frowned. He had large eyes that almost appeared to be creeping out of his skull and half of his face was covered in a pepper beard. "Muggle-born are ye?"

She shook her head and shrugged. "Dad's a wizard, but he never brought us here. I think I lost him."

The man nodded. "This' a big place alright. Why don't you stand here for now, so you don't get trampled?"

Rory grinned and moved behind the stall, looking closer to the sweets as she did so. "All these sweets are so weird," she told him, frowning. "I don't know any of them."

The man proceeded to pick a couple of sweets out of the pile. "You telling me you never had any Every Flavour Beans, maybe some Pineapple Rings?"

Rory looked at the items and shook her head fiercely. "Nope! Daddy's not around much, and I don't think Mummy likes us eating too many sweets. She says our teeth will rot."

The man barked out a laugh and handed the sweets to her. "When you see your parents, let me know, we'll let them know where you are, and they can pay for the sweets."

She grinned, accepting the sweet eagerly before ripping into the Pineapple rings. They tasted just like gummi worms, the sour ones, except they were rings and not worms. They almost had a strange sensation and she looked down to see her fingernails turning yellow. "Ooh, what's happening?"

"Right, forgot about that, couple of the packets have a charm on them, turn your nails yellow, nothing bad will happen, they'll just be like that a couple of days, your Dad can probably fix them if it becomes a problem."

Rory shrugged and continued eating the Pineapple rings. They were delicious, and she couldn't believe the sweets they had here. These were so good, and she'd only eaten one packet. She couldn't think what the others might taste like. She kept her eyes peeled for either her parents or her siblings, hoping they'd be able to find her no problem. "Will they be able to find me?" She asked the man who was taking change from a customer.

"I expect so, they'll just follow your tracking."

"What's that?"

The man frowned. "It's an enchantment a lot of parents choose to put on their young children so as not to lose them." He said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Could be though that your old man never did it. Most put it on their youngin's when they're babies, comes off a little later and needs to be reapplied, but if your Mum's a muggle," he looked at her for confirmation, "perhaps you never got it."

Rory shrugged. She didn't think her dad had ever put any magic on her, he said that he couldn't because of the statue of secrecy. "I don't know." She admitted, sighing and stuffing more of the Pineapple Rings in her mouth. "I just sort of ran off coz I was so excited."

Dark burgundy robes whipped past her as the man pulled his wand out of his sleeve. "In that case, perhaps getting his attention the old-fashioned way is called for." He said, winking at her quickly before pointing his wand at his throat. "Give me a moment. What's your name?"

"Aurora Walker – McKinnon."

The wizard nodded at her and grinned, _"sonorous,_ ANYONE WHO LOST A CHILD PLEASE COME TO THE SWEETS STALL NEAR FLOURISH AND BLOTTS, SHES EATING ALL MY SWEETS." He flicked his wrist and put his wand back up his sleeve. "That should do the - "

"Aurora!"

Rory looked up to see her parents and her siblings rushing towards her and she jumped up and down in happiness. "Mum, Dad!" The man beside her chuckled as he moved aside to let her pass. She ran over to her father and threw herself into him. "Daddy! You should try these treats! They're so good!" She said, shoving the Pineapple Rings in his face.

"Honey, calm down." Her mother called, walking up slowly with Logan on one hand and Ellie on the other. All three of them were looking around them in awe. Rory could understand, because her head hadn't stopped spinning this way or that for the whole time she'd been here.

Strong arms lifted Rory into the air and spun her around as she giggled, dropping a few of her sweets as she flailed. "Daddy! Put me down, we need to pay for these!"

He laughed with her before heading over to the stall. "Mack, how are you, been a few years." He greeted, digging through his robes for his small amount of coins to pay off the debt his daughter was apparently raising.

Mack grinned and shrugged. "Been here for a while now, Mil, you and that little fair-haired friend of yours?"

Milton smiled. "Got married, so did I, this I my wife, Hannah and our three kids," he held his hand out to bring them forward, "you've met Aurora, but this is Logan and little Ellie." He said, ruffling up the youngster's hair. "How much do I owe you, Mack?"

The man smiled. "For you, 7 sickles."

Milton handed over the money and nodded. "Good to see you, Mack. I'll see you around." He held his hand out for Rory who gladly took it and headed in the direction of Gringotts. "Come on, we've some money to get."

TYA

"Goblins?" Hannah's head swivelled around so fast, as she took in the sight of the giant bank. It was immaculate, completely overwhelming her in a way she didn't quite know how to understand. She had never really spent much time in a bank, given she never had a lot of money, but she was excited to see all of this together. The walls were large and obsessively clean, the marble slabs giving way to gold trestles. "Do only Goblins work here?" She whispered into her husband's ear.

Milton shrugged. "Probably not, but I don't come here often enough to check. I'm sure there are curse breakers around though and they'd be human."

One of the Goblins close by stared at them, crooking his finger slowly to them. "Step forward, humans, I am Harok, how can I be servicing you?"

They stepped up to the desk, Milton gesturing for the others to stand back as he and Aurora spoke to the Goblin. "Harok, yes, I need to access my vault and set up a side account for my daughter, Aurora."

Rory grinned giddily, more excited by the fact Goblins were real than anything else. Harok nodded, leaning silently over the desk to look down on them. "Ah, you have the key for your vault, yes?"

"Of course, we just need enough for books and supplies."

"Of course, we will get what you need organised first and whilst you are down in your vault, I'll ensure all the paper work for your additional vault is put together for you." He said, leaning back. "If you will follow Goruk, he will take you now to your vault." He looked over at Hannah with appraising eyes. "Your muggle must stay here, we don't allow them in the vaults."

Rory frowned at the words. "But I-"

Milton held his hand over her mouth to silence her. "Of course, please give me a moment."

Harok nodded, peering over to Goruk to let him know to get ready. Milton pulled Rory away from the desk as she protested and shushed her. "Rory, please calm down, I know you don't like what he said, but the Goblins are the only way to get into the vaults. We don't want to upset them."

Hannah, who appeared to have heard the Goblin, easy enough given the loudness with which he'd spoken, shook her head and sighed. "I'll stay here with the kids. You can take her down and get everything sorted. I probably wouldn't understand it all anyway. I saw an ice-cream shop back out the way, so I'll take them there."

Milton nodded and reached into his cloak to hand off the rest of his money. "Galleons are gold, sickles are silver, knuts are bronze. Most people won't know you're a muggle, so you should be okay, but try not to stand out, I'm not here to help you if you get into trouble."

Hannah nodded. Though Milton had constantly bemoaned the safety of the wizarding world, neither of them were stupid enough to forget that she was completely out of her element here. Should something happen, she was completely defenceless. "I'll stay in the shop, we won't leave there." She turned on her heel and walked the younger children out of the shop.

Rory turned to her father and frowned. "Daddy, why are the Goblins rude to Mummy?"

He shook his head. "I'll explain it all to you one day when you're older. For now, we should get to the vaults and get you all set up for school."

Rory nodded and clutched his hand tightly. She'd been happy before, but now she was just upset that the Goblins had upset her mum and that she couldn't be with them. She was sure her mother would have liked to see the vaults, but it appeared she would never get the chance. She stifled her desire to glare at the Goblins as they walked down a long corridor, the vaults, her father explained, were reached by means of small, goblin-driven carts that sped along miniature train tracks through the bank's underground tunnels. She had thoughts of a roller coaster she once visited when they went to a theme park and she hoped the ride would not be quite so traumatising.

In contrast to the grand marble of the entryway and the main hall, the passageways to the vaults were stone and dimly lit with flaming torches. They sloped down to a track, upon which ran little carts controlled by the goblins. The carts moved very quickly, her father explained as they stepped into the one prepared for them, which he said might make her queasy. "To prevent you from really getting a good look at your surroundings." He added, wrapping his arms around her to keep her steady. From what Rory could see they seemed to run on a vast, complex, interconnected series of tracks that allowed them to move seamlessly between the vaults, not that she could really see them.

"Hold on and please keep all body parts inside the cart at all times. If you have any valuables on your person, do try to keep them there." Goruk told them, pulling the lever and gritting his teeth as the cart lurched forward into the dark tunnels. The cart kept moving further into the vaults, and Rory had to close her eyes to keep from getting dizzy. This was worse than the roller coaster she had been on and she certainly hoped she wasn't going to have to do this too often.

"Are we nearly there?" She shouted over the sound of grinding metal.

"Soon!" Her father called back, clearly just as unhappy with the ride as she was. On second thoughts, maybe her mother really was better off in the ice cream shop.

Several minutes passed with Rory opening and closing her eyes to try and get a look at their surroundings, only the cart moved so fast that she became quickly dizzy with the effort and had to close them again. She leaned back into her father, the comfort of his presence setting her at ease, for the most part.

"We've arrived."

Rory slowly opened her eyes to see that it was true. The cart had stopped in front of a vault, the Goblin standing in front of it. When had he moved? She waited for her dad to get out before allowing him to help her out of the cart. She stumbled slightly and fell into him, but he caught her easily, smiling at her warmly. "Vault 617, come on, I'll show you."

The Goblin held his hand out for the key, which was handed to him and he then moved towards the vault door and opened it. Rory watched in silent awe as the door swung open to real three moderate piles of Galleons, Sickles and Knuts. She watched as her father stepped up into the vault and gathered a small pile of each and dumped them unceremoniously into a small pouch he then handed off to her. "These will let you buy everything you need. With some extra left over to take you through the school year. Of course, if you need any more money at any point, please do let me know and I'll come back."

Rory took the pouch in hand and peeked into it. The gold, silver and bronze collectively making her smile. "Why is it so light? I feel like I'm not holding anything."

"Magic." Was the only answer she got.

TYA

The rest of the morning passed by rather quickly. They'd set up her account, which was now going to receive a steady allowance of 1 galleon and 10 sickles each term to cover any expenses she had throughout the year. Unless she got her own job in which case they'd agreed that they would down the allowance, depending on what she got paid. They walked around a little as her father pointed out little places he'd gone as a child and he even showed her the Quidditch shop, even though she wasn't allowed her own broom as a first year. Of course, as soon as she learnt to fly, her father promised her that he would fly with her. When they got to Florean Fortescue's, Rory was ready and raring to go and buy all of her supplies. After she had an ice–cream of course.

"Hi Honey, how did it go?"

Rory grinned as her brother handed her a spoon and she dug into his ice-cream. "We got my account set up, so I can go on my own now if I need to. We didn't go and buy anything yet though, I wanted to come and meet up with you."

The red headed woman nodded. "That makes sense, Sweetie. Do you want to have some ice-cream first, or are you ready to go and buy all the things you need?"

Milton shook his head. "Nope, she was desperate for some ice-cream, so we can head out after. You'll like some of the stores, Hannah, and the good thing is there's no muggle restrictions on them since your children are magical. I also managed to exchange some of our muggle currency for more wizarding currency, so we don't have to eat into what's left in my vault or Rory's pouch. I only gave her enough for the supplies she'll need to get a little extra to cover her for school this year."

Rory grinned. "I already love it!"

"Daddy, I wanna go to Hoggywarts too!" Ellie pouted, wrapping herself around his legs. As the youngest, she would have the longest time to wait. He was about to sooth her when a sharp bark of his name caused him to pause and turn around.

"McKinnon, that's not you is it!?"

A smile easily crept onto his face as he immediately recognised the ragtag group of red heads heading towards them as they stepped into the store. "Arthur Weasley! What a surprise!"

Mr Weasley, a woman and a whole bunch of kids suddenly appeared in front of him. The youngest only a baby in arms. "You remember Molly, don't you?"

Milton held his hand out to the woman he remembered as Molly Prewett, same year as he had been. Not a close friend, but a friend non-the-less. "Of course, who could forget the Potion Princess of Gryffindor?" He grinned, shaking her hand happily as she grinned back at him.

"I didn't expect to run into you here, Milton, last we'd heard you'd disappeared into the muggle world!" She said, hand snaking back to wrap tightly around her small bundle wrapped in purple linens.

Milton nodded. "Of course, of course, yes, I've been back a couple of years now, working in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Wizengamot Administration Services actually."

Mr Weasley frowned. "Ah, must have been missing each other then, eh, Milton?"

He laughed. "Probably, with everything that's been going on, Wizengamot's been very busy, as you no doubt know, hey Arthur?"

He nodded in understanding and Rory wondered what they weren't saying. "Did you go to school with Daddy?" She asked instead, surveying the mass of red heads in front of her. One of them looked about her age, red hair, freckles and green eyes, they could have been related.

The man nodded. "Molly and I did, that's right. I take you you're on your way?"

Hannah nodded. "Yes, she's been ever so excited since she got her letter." She told them, smiling. They seemed lovely, but she wasn't sure if she should be telling them about her status and so she left that up to Milton's discretion, though she thought perhaps they might already suspect, given she hadn't gone to school with either of them. Feeling suddenly shy, she shifted uncomfortably on her feet, tucking her red hair behind her ear.

Milton seemed to remember his wife was beside him as he turned to her and gestured between the groups. "Ah, forgive me. Arthur, Molly, this is my wife, Hannah, and our children, Aurora, Logan and Eleanora."

Mr and Mrs Weasley took turns shaking Hannah's hand before turning to do the same with the kids. "This is my eldest, Bill, then Charlie, Percy, Fred, George… wait, no, George and Fred," he said, shaking his head, "and then Ron here and Ginny with Molly."

Bill held his hand out to Rory who stuck her spoon in her mouth and shook his hand. "I'm not used to seeing so many red heads!" She told him truthfully, giggling to herself.

Bill snorted. "Well, I'm not used to seeing red heads that aren't related to me!"

Mrs Weasley was the first to make the connection. "Oh, your wife's a muggle!"

Mr Weasley winced and shook his head at Mrs Weasley, but Hannah simply smiled. "Yes, I am. That's not a problem for you I trust?"

Milton jumped in. "The Weasley's are lovely people, Love. Arthur here works in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office. He loves muggles, thinks they're fascinating."

Bill nodded at the in agreement. "Every time you invent something, Dad has a mini freak out. Honestly, the day you invented television I reckon he nearly had a heart attack in excitement."

Milton nodded. "Oh, I can attest to that, I vaguely remember the conversation in the Great Hall."

Mr Weasley shook his head and laughed. "I'm sorry they're so much more technologically advanced than we are, pity electricity and magic doesn't get on."

Bill looked at Rory and nodded to his dad and made the universal sign of someone being crazy. Rory coughed into her ice-cream making Bill laugh. The rest of the Weasley's looked towards the cackling pair, trying to figure out what set them off. Hannah to her credit who had seen the exchange, remained remarkably straight faced and shook her head at them.

"We're off to get Aurora's supplies for her first year, care to join us?"

Mr and Mrs Weasley looked between them. "Why doesn't Molly go with your Hannah, show her around a bit and you and I take Bill and Aurora to get their supplies?"

Hannah looked at Mrs Weasley who seemed eager for the role. It was clear she was a little tired from all the kids they were tugging around. "Sure, why not? That sounds like it would be good, I can take the kids around to the other stores and you can show Aurora the ropes."

With everyone agreed, they headed off in separate directions. Bill and Aurora chatted to each other quietly as they followed along behind their fathers.

TYA

"Madam Malkin's Robes," Milton announced, ushering the two preteens inside. "We can get your uniforms here, work robes, gloves and hats!"

Rory and Bill ducked under his arms and looked around the store. It was moderately sized and had different types of robes all over the place. Mr Weasley and Milton both walked over to the plain black robes in the corner and Bill and Rory followed. They took some time to look around at all the different types of robes and Rory marvelled at the fact that she might one day get to wear robes like the ones she was seeing on the rack. They were all so colourful and she wanted something colourful.

A woman with silvery hair immediately made her way over to them and smiled. "Hello, first years are you?" She asked them politely.

Rory smiled, and Bill nodded. The woman grinned. "Excellent, come right this way and we'll get you fitted with your new robes."

Mr Weasley gestured for the pair to follow the woman and Aurora shrugged, chucking her Bertie Botts beans over to her father. She'd yet to open them, mostly because she was a little scared of whether or not they actually would be every flavour. The thought was kind of terrifying.

"Sit up here, Miss, we'll get you all sized up, so we can get you the best robes."

A man stood up in front of Bill and nodded to him casually. There were other students about their age also going through this and Rory noted it must be standard practice.

"Oh, you've got a lovely dress on." The woman remarked, making Rory look down. She was only wearing a denim overall skirt with a white shirt underneath, but she supposed it did look nice. It certainly stood up against the colourful robes the adults in the room were wearing.

She looked up again as the woman began taking her measurements and smiled. "Thank you!"

To her right, Bill was being fussed about as the man working with him kept demanding he lift his arms higher. Bill threw Aurora an exasperated look over his shoulder which made her laugh before the woman helping her was fussing with her shoulders, trying to make them sit right so she could get the proper measurement. "Don't slouch, sit up!"

After what seemed like hours, Rory and Bill were finally walking out of Madam Malkin's robes with two bags full of the clothing they would be needing for school. In the same vain, Rory's father gifted her with a couple of bows and headbands for her to wear. Accessory wise, they would be a wonderful addition to her wardrobe.

The next store they stopped in, of course, was the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts, which Rory rather thought looked like it was stuffed so full it was going to come apart at the windows. It was like it had been haphazardly put together a little like a poorly made bookshelf. She voiced this opinion to Bill who shrugged. "Reminds me of home!" he quickly informed her, only leaving her more confused than ever.

After another hour or two, walking to other stores and picking up the extra supplies they needed (Bill declined a pet, but Rory walked away with both a brown barn owl named nibbles and a black cat called Salem), they finally managed to make their way to Ollivanders, the wand shop. This was the place that Aurora was most excited to see. Turning to Bill, who had been charged with holding her cat, Rory grinned at him. "Bill! Bill, look, this is going to be amazing! Aren't you excited? I am so excited!"

Bill laughed at her. "Careful, McKinnon, anyone would think you were enjoying this." He said, winking at her.

Rory immediately sobered, momentarily frowning at him before rolling her eyes and shaking her head. She could already tell that she and Bill were going to be best friends and she hoped they would be in the same house, whatever that turned out to be. "Come on, let's go in!"

Mr Weasley and Milton followed them inside and then stood to the side as they walked up to the mostly covered desk. It didn't matter where they looked, all they could see were wand boxes everywhere, (which was much cooler than it sounded) and lots of dust. Rory tripped slightly on one of the floor boards and tilted forward to catch herself on the wall, which seemed to shake slightly under her arm and throw up dust, causing her to cough. Soon, the owner of the store appeared around the corner, a curious gleam in his eyes.

"Hello, hello, welcome to Ollivanders." He greeted, carefully stepping over a few fallen boxes as he walked across the room to them. "Here to buy your first wands, excellent, right this way." He gestured for them to step behind the desk before picking up a measuring tape and getting it all started. Rory was shocked to see the tape moving all on its own before it moved back to Ollivanders hands. "Hmm, right, yes. Excellent measurements, we shall see what wand you end up with. Similar to your fathers perhaps?"

He moved over to Bill next who looked only too happy to be measured. Where Rory had been awkward, Bill was fluid and moved in all the right directions without even being asked. He grinned over at Rory as she glared at him before Ollivander placed the measuring tape back on the desk. "Alright, let's see." He started, beckoning to Rory first. "Each wand is unique and different, maybe only subtly, but no two wands are the same." He informed her, picking out a box as he spoke. "I predominantly use only three wand cores here, superior in every respect from what I've researched and simply much more amenable to becoming a wand core." He pulled out another box. "Each wand has its own properties, whether from the core, the wood, the length or the flexibility, they all say something about the person who wields them." He picked out the last box and placed it on the table in front of her. He lifted up one of the wands. "Take this wand for example," he handed it to her. "10 and a quarter inch vine wood wand with," he held the wand up to his ear, "Dragon heartstring at its core." He handed it back to her. "Dragon Heartstrings tend to make for very powerful wands, and those who wield them tend to be gifted in all types of magic. They bond strongly with their current owners and allow them to produce powerful enchantments." He told her. "Give it a wave, let's see how you go."

Rory blinked and shrugged, turning the wand around in her hand. It was gorgeous. Light wood coloured, vine, obviously, but the leaf design made her smile. She pointed it at the wall behind her and gave it a tiny wave. The wall shook, dust falling from the rafters and Ollivander shook her head. "No, I think not. Okay, no matter, try this next one. This is a 12 inch Acacia wand with unicorn hair. I consider this to be fairly bendy." He said, passing it to her. "The combination of the unicorn hair and acacia wood actually makes this wand a specialist in most magic. Unicorn hair makes it a consistent caster and the addition of Acacia means that not only is this one of the loyalist of wands, it will also withhold its true power from all but the most talented in their chosen field." Rory nodded as he spoke and held the wand tightly. Immediately she felt a heat rise within her, that started at the wand and when she looked at Ollivander, he had a smile on his face. "Ah, I believe, Miss McKinnon, has just become the proud owner of this lovely acacia wand. That'll be 7 galleons."

Aurora looked at her father and grinned, quickly handing over the correct change before moving out of the way for Bill, who had given the cat to his father to hold. Bill ended up with an 11 inch beech wand with Dragon heartstring core, which Mr Ollivander had suggested spoke of great adventure in Bill's future. Not one to question fate, Bill grinned excitedly for the rest of the trip through Diagon Alley.


	3. Chapter 3 Off To Hogwarts

**Chapter Three: Off to Hogwarts**

**a/n: So… I am very bad at math. Please don't try to figure out the pricing of the things mentioned. I tried using the actual amounts JKR mentions (accounting for inflation etc) but couldn't really get it to fit right. Then I tried using wizarding currency like muggle currency, but the amounts were too ridiculous. I've made my peace with this. None of the money will make a lot of sense and I'm really just doing what feels right. However, if it bothers you and you really want to draw me up a complete inventory of the amounts, I'll add you to a list of thankyou's I'll put at the end of this series.**

* * *

"What did you end up telling your friends?" Her father asked over dinner the night before she was to leave for Hogwarts.

Rory sighed. It had been a hard conversation because she really wasn't sure what to tell them. Eventually she'd just gone with the truth. "I told them I was accepted into a boarding school for gifted students."

Her father nodded. "That makes sense. Telling them anything else probably wouldn't have worked, and we'll back you up of course. If you decide to write them any letters, send them to your mother and she can send them on to your friends."

That was what she had been considering herself. She wouldn't want to drop off the face of the planet after all. She was going to make new friends she was sure, but that didn't mean she wanted to give up on her old ones, not entirely. She supposed only time would really tell what was going to happen. Moving back to her spaghetti, it occurred to Rory that she'd never even really been on camp. She just wasn't sure how she was going to fair without either of her parents around. It was certainly going to be difficult, and she hoped that they would write her often. She was going to have to write them every day.

"Cheer up, Sweetie. You'll be back for Christmas."

Rory looked over at her mother and smiled. "You're right, it's just weird is all. I never really thought about what it meant."

Rory's father nodded and squeezed her shoulder softly. "It's going to feel weird for a while, but you'll understand more as you go. And I'll always be here for you, you can write your mother and I whenever you want, and you'll come home during breaks. You'll love it. You'll get sick of us."

Laughing as she forked more spaghetti into her mouth, Rory nodded along with both of her parents. Logan and Ellie had already asked her to send them stuff from Hogwarts and whilst she didn't think she would be able to send them anything magical, she was sure she could send them sweets, or something equally cool. Her brother for example was very curious about everything, so she was sure she would be able to find him something and Ellie was the sweetest of all of them, so she was sure she would be happy with literally anything Rory bought her, which was good, because the girl's taste changed every time she asked her, which made it difficult to figure out what to buy her.

"So, the train leaves from where?" Her mother asked, looking back at her father.

"Kings Cross station, Platform 9 ¾ at eleven." He said, turning to Rory. "It'll be dinner time by the time you get to Hogwarts and then you'll be sorted."

"What house do you think I'll be in?" She asked, curiously. She'd read a little about the houses but there was really nothing definitive. Hufflepuff called to her, but so did Ravenclaw, so she really wasn't sure. Though, as a red head, she didn't think she'd look particularly good in yellow. "Hufflepuff speaks to me." She told him, shrugging.

"Hard to say really, I was a Ravenclaw of course, and I am almost certain your mother would have been a Hufflepuff, but to be honest, it's not really an exact science and it doesn't always run in families."

"Did you ever know any families that were separated?"

"Not personally, though when I was at school all the Black girls were in Slytherin, yet one of the cousins, Sirius, he was a Gryffindor. He wasn't their brother of course, but that entire family were traditionally Slytherin from what I know of them." He didn't think it a good idea to mention what the man had done, there had been a lot of discussion around the wizarding world about his role in the murders of the Potters, but it wasn't a topic he was greatly knowledgeable on and it had only happened last year.

"So, I could go either way then?"

"Absolutely, I think it sort of _sees inside you_. It knows who you are on an intimate level and can kind of see the person you'll become."

Rory blinked. "What does?"

"The Sorting Hat."

"A hat sorts you?"

"Yes, it's a remnant from the beginning of the school, the Founders, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin, created the hat and imbued it with magic, making it magically sentient."

Rory didn't think she would ever understand. "That sounds weird."

"It's extremely complicated magic, well above someone like me."

"Old magic."

"There's a lot of that going around." Her mother chimed in, shaking her head.

Her father laughed. "I suppose so, there's much more I could tell you, but to be honest I think it'll be better for you to experience all of this for yourself. It's much easier to understand when you're facing it."

Rory nodded. "Thanks for telling me though, I want to be as prepared as possible."

Her father got a knowing look in his eye, but he didn't seem inclined to speak. Rory watched him for a moment before shrugging and moving back to her spaghetti. She was sure it wasn't too important if he hadn't brought it up yet.

"Hang on." She said, looking up again. "You said platform 9 ¾ but I've been to Kings Cross station before, there's no such place." She frowned, dropping her fork.

He waggled his eyes. "Magic."

Her mother laughed. "That seems to be the go-to answer for you these days."

Her father shrugged. "Well of course, it is a school of magic, Dear."

Everyone rolled their eyes as the dinner came to an end. Rory helped her mother clean up as her father took Ellie and Logan up to their rooms. "You'll be careful won't you, Sweetie?"

Rory smiled at her mother, walking the plates over to the sink. It was the same words she'd been saying for the last couple of weeks and though Rory was tired of answering it, she was starting to understand what she was really saying. This was a whole new world she was walking into and for the most part she was going to be walking the path alone. It was a daunting reality, but one she felt she was ready for. "I promise I'll be as safe as possible, Mum."

She smiled over her shoulder and nodded, reaching out a hand and squeezing Rory's shoulder. Despite it all, the assurances, the calming words, the glimpses into that world, Hannah couldn't shake the feeling of dread and fear she felt at the thought of Rory going through it all the alone. "I love you, Hun. Remember you can come home whenever you want and if they won't let you," she started turning to look at her daughter seriously, "you tell them that even though your Mama's a muggle, I'll find my way in there and get you out myself."

Rory smiled and stepped into her mother's waiting arms. "Thanks Mum, I'll make sure they know."

TYA

September 1st arrived. Walking along the platforms between Platform 9 and 10 was strange, people were moving about but it was almost in slow motion. Her parents walked along each side of her, both her siblings were at school and so she had them all to herself for the first time in a long time. She wasn't sure what had been done about her muggle school, but she knew her mother had taken care of it somehow.

"Platform 9 ¾ is over this way."

Her father led her over to the column between the signs and she stared at them skeptically. She certainly didn't see how this was supposed to get her to the Platform, but she supposed she was going to find out in a moment. "What?"

Her father pointed to the column. "All you need to do is walk straight at the wall between the platforms and you can get straight through."

Rory narrowed her eyes at him. This all sounded like a bunch of hooey to her. "You what?"

He laughed. "Why don't we all do it together, it would be easier that way since Muggles aren't typically supposed to be able to get through."

Rory nodded and held tight to both of their hands. Her mother seemed just as apprehensive about all of this as she did though, so she was concerned as they walked slowly towards the wall. Her father was pulling the cart behind them and they got closer and closer to the wall. Rory was sure her father would stop any moment to laugh at them, but they only kept moving towards the wall. As they got closer he pulled them into a bit of a jog and then suddenly, the platform was sprawling out in front of them. Rory blinked and looked behind her to see a wall, and not the muggle filled platform she was expecting.

Her father leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Told you."

The gasp that followed from her mother was very close to a curse and Rory grinned. She clearly wasn't the only person impressed by all of this. Her father kept tugging on her hand, moving them out of the way of the wall so other travelers could get through. "The train will be leaving in about ten minutes, so let's get you all fixed up."

She wasn't wearing her robes yet, she'd opted instead for a short denim skirt with leggings and a pink jumper. There was only a slight chill in the air, but the school was to the North, her father had told her, meaning it was probably going to be even colder.

"Aurora, hey!"

Rory looked over to the sound of her name to see the gaggle of Weasley's already moving Bill's trunk into the train. She was most fascinated by the fact that they were floating it up and into the carriage. She smiled and raced over to them. "Hi, Bill, hey, guys!"

Her parents soon followed her, bringing her cart with them and dumping it all amongst Bill's stuff. Not that he appeared to have much. It seemed they'd managed to fit all of his things in one trunk, and since he had no pets, he seemed to have had an easier time. Rory on the other hand had her trunk full of her books and a couple of clothes and a bag or two filled with extras that she had managed to sneak out before her father noticed. Of course, Nibbles and Salem both seemed to be snoozing the day away too. "Are you already wearing your robes?" Rory turned to her mother to see she was addressing Bill, who indeed seemed to be doing just that.

Bill shrugged, and his cheeks reddened slightly. "I was up early this morning and I may have gotten slightly over excited."

Rory had to cover her mouth to hide her laugh but judging by the sulky look she got for her efforts, it hadn't gone unnoticed. "Sorry, but it's funny. You have a magical family and I don't."

He didn't look impressed and so Rory tried desperately to sober herself enough to get to work. "Are you using magic to move the trunks?"

"Yes, would you like help with yours, Dear?"

She was about to answer when she noticed her father had already moved over to do so with the help of Mr. Weasley. She turned back to Mrs. Weasley and gestured to the two adults and smiled. Mrs. Weasley nodded and turned back to the boy beside her, Charlie, she thought and said something to him that Rory couldn't hear. She looked over at Bill who was fussing with the sleeves of his robes. "Shall we try for a compartment together?" She asked hopefully. She didn't know Bill well, having only met him a few weeks ago and then not having spoken to him until now, but she already liked him and believed they would easily become friends. He was also the only person she knew here and wasn't sure what sharing compartments on the train was going to be like.

Bill looked at her and nodded. "Yeah, that would be good. There's one or two friends that might join us, but if you're okay with that, then I'm happy to share."

Rory nodded. "Yeah, that's okay, I want to make more friends, so you can help."

"More friends," Bill said, looking at her, "who do you already know?"

Rory blinked. "Oh, I just thought that… you know since we met in Diagon Alley and stuff…" she drifted off, not looking at Bill. She was embarrassed to think he didn't at least consider himself to be on friendly terms with her. "Sorry, I just thought-"

Her words were cut off by a bark of laughter that had her whipping her head up to look at Bill who was holding himself up against the train as he descended into fits. Rory glared at him her face pinking in further embarrassment and the situation he'd caused.

"Merlin, your face!" He cried, slapping his thigh in glee. "Oh, that is hilarious, oh Merlin, oh Merlin!"

Rory turned her face away to pout slightly before, not able to stop it, she too began to laugh with him, the adults shaking their heads and sighing at the pair who weren't even bothered to help with the loading of trunks or pets.

"That should do it then." Mr. Weasley called to them, alerting them to the fact that all their belongings had been loaded onto the train. Her father had gone so far as to load their things into the racks of the nearest compartment, which was towards the front of the train. "You're about four or five compartments away from the prefects, so try not to get into any trouble."

Bill shot his father a look, but Rory didn't understand it, instead turning to her mother and wrapping her arms around her torso, pressing her face to her mother's chest. Having a whole year without her was going to be strange and quite hard, she thought. She'd only just gotten used to not having her father around all the time, because of the Divorce, but this was something else entirely. She wasn't sure how she was going to cope. She'd never really thought about a boarding school being part of her education.

"Don't forget to write to me." Her mother said, wrapping her arms tightly around her head. She smelled like cherries and hot chocolate and Rory was never going to forget the smell.

"I'll write you as soon as I've been sorted." She promised, making a mental note to start her letter as soon as she got on the train. She never wanted to forget a single moment of Hogwarts and she would use her mother as a diary if she had to. Although, perhaps a proper diary would be the better idea.

"I'll have to start insisting your brother helps with the chores." She said, pulling away slowly to look down at Rory. It was a bit of a joke to be honest. Getting Logan out of her room at any point was almost as hard as baking a soufflé. A feat she'd not yet mastered but was determined to accomplish at least once in her life. She wondered, briefly, if she'd be allowed to use the kitchens at Hogwarts.

"Good luck." She murmured, shaking her head. She'd have to check and see how that goes when all of this was over.

"Coming, Aurora?"

Rory looked over to see Bill had already pulled himself up and into the train, leaning out the door to wave her over. She turned to her father and smiled, throwing her arms up around his neck with a tight squeeze. "I'll write to you too, thanks for everything."

He shook his head. "I only regret not being able to share all of this with you sooner. You're not strictly allowed to do magic outside of school, but I tell you what, we'll arrange some weekends for you to spend at mine and we can sneak some practice in, alright?"

She nodded, she was sure her knew what he was doing and wouldn't allow her to get into trouble. "I need to go, love you!" She quickly rushed over to the train and reached up for Bill's hand to get up. They turned to wave at their families before moving into the carriage and making for their compartment.

When they got there, they noticed a girl already in there. She was sitting with her back to them as she waved out the window to someone on the platform, though Rory couldn't see who. There was a distinctive burn mark on her ear and her hair was dark brown with green dye at the tips. The hair was mid length, coming to her shoulders with braids thrown in haphazardly. She was wearing strange, mismatched clothing and what looked like gardening boots. Bill made a noise and when the girl turned around, Rory had a sudden though that she was giving off a sort of playful air. Her face was wide with a cleft chin, thin nose and full lips that really rounded out the rest of her face. Her eyes were almost black and full of excitement and something else that Rory couldn't quite work out. "Sorry, this your space?"

Rory and Bill shrugged. "Our trunks are in here, but you are too, so you can stay, or we can stay, not sure how the protocol works."

Bill laughed from beside her and squeezed past her to sit down. "Don't mind Aurora, I'm Bill Weasley." He said, putting his hand out for her to shake.

The girl grinned, shaking his hand happily and holding hers out towards Rory who moved in to sit beside Bill, across from the stranger. "I'm Penelope Anderson, but you can call me Pez, I prefer it."

"Nice to meet you," Rory was glad that the girl seemed nice. "You're a first year?"

Pez nodded. "Sure am, the rest of my family been and gone already, so I've heard all the stories."

Bill grinned. "I'm the oldest, but I heard stories from my Mum and Dad."

Pez looked at Rory then. "What about you?"

"My Dad's told me some stuff, but he says I should see it for myself."

The train lurched as it started moving and Pez, who had been leaning forward, almost fell into Bill, snorting to herself as she fixed herself up before throwing an apologetic look at the red head. "Sorry about that, Bill Weasley, I didn't get you anywhere did I?"

Bill chuckled and shook his head. "Nah, I moved before you did, luckily."

Rory grinned. She was glad they were all getting along so far, she wasn't sure she wanted to share a compartment with someone she wouldn't like. That wouldn't be fun at all. "What do you think of Hogwarts?" She asked, the question open for either of her companions to answer.

Bill nodded to Pez to go first, and she nodded her thanks to him. Rory was momentarily amused by all the nodding. "First thing you need know about me, yeah, is that I'm adopted. Well, kinda. I'm an orphan, see, and there's five of us in a group home." She started, shrugging. "Well, there were, they're all gone now and I'm the only one left." She told them and though she seemed sad, her smile never faltered. "I grew up listening to my sisters all talking about how amazing the school was and all about the different houses. They were all in either, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, so I'll be interested to see where I end up."

"My whole family has been Gryffindor for generations, I'm certain I will be there too, I can't be the first Weasley not in Gryffindor."

Bill and Pez laughed together, leaving Rory feeling a little left out. She didn't really understand the politics and intricacies of house dynamics, which sounded pretty important from all the information she'd gathered so far. Still, she was sure she would be happy in any house, she had no biases for any of them, though she was sure her father would want her to follow in his footsteps, as a muggle-born, he had no legacy to follow. "I don't know much about the houses." She admitted, both stopped their conversation to look at her.

"Oh, right!" Bill said, his voice louder than usual. "Right, sorry Aurora, I forgot."

"Forgot what?"

"I was raised in a muggle household."

Pez nodded. "Ah, that explains it, yeah. Are you parents muggles?"

"Not my Dad, but Mum is."

"She's so nice." Said Bill, though Rory wasn't sure why he felt the need.

Pez seemed to have ignored him though. "What was your Dad?"

"Ravenclaw, he says he thinks Mum would have been a Hufflepuff, but I don't know enough."

Bill laughed. "None of us really do, that's the sorting hats job.

"Bill!"

The door to their compartment slid open revealing two boys. One slightly skinny, with big blue eyes and black hair tucked behind his ears. The other was tall, lanky with a slim build and green eyes. He had a closely shaved head with funny patterns shaved into the sides near his ears. He was wearing a blue and bronze scarf.

Bill beamed. "Myron, Kirley! I wondered where you'd got to."

The pair stepped into the compartment and shut the door behind them, both dropping down onto the seat beside Pez who eyed them cautiously. "Bill, man, you will not believe the trip we had." The skinny one was saying, shaking his head. "We had to go back for Kirley because his cat tried to fly!"

Bill snorted, and Rory wondered if the story was true. "Sorry, guys. Aurora, Pez, these are friends of mine, Myron Wagtail and Kirley McCormack. They're a bit weird, but you'll grow to love them."

Pez didn't seem convinced but smiled at them and nodded. Holding out her hand to shake. "Nice head." She added to the one with the funny shaved patterns, Kirley.

"Oh, these?" He pointed to the patterns. "Yeah, I was trying out a new style, normally I have my hair longer, fringed and stuff, thought I needed a bit of a change."

Bill snorted again, and Pez held Rory's gaze for a moment, before looking to the heavens. They both could tell their ride to Hogwarts was going to be filled with lots of the three boys. Rory didn't mind though, she was used to having a lot of people around her. Not just with her family, but she was friends with almost everyone at her school and the group she tended to spend time with the most consisted of a large group of people, fifteen on average. Though she was only close to a handful of them.

"You're Aurora, right?"

Rory was pulled out of her thoughts to look up at Kirley who seemed intently focused on her. Pez, Myron and Bill were in a conversation with each other, which left it up to her to engage Kirley. "Yeah, you got it."

"Do you have a nickname?"

She thought it was an odd question, but she nodded anyway. "Yeah, Rory."

He smiled. "Can I call you Rory?"

She shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

He frowned. "You _can_ say no. I'm not going to call you Rory if you don't want me to."

Rory shrugged again but smiled. "It's okay."

Kirley sat for a moment studying her, before moving to sit beside her. "Sorry, you just seemed a little out of it, are you okay?"

"Are you a first year?"

He blinked at the question but shook his head. "Nah, I'm a second year, so's Myron."

"What house are you in?"

He smiled. "I'm a Ravenclaw." He said, pointing at the blue scarf around his neck. "I thought this would give it away."

Rory frowned. "I don't know much about the houses. I grew up with muggles, or well, a muggle Mum."

Kirley nodded. "Ah, that's okay. My Dad was a muggle."

Rory felt more comfortable with that information. He knew what she was going through. "My Dad only told me about magic a couple months ago on my birthday."

Kirley nodded in sympathy. "I understand. My Dad wasn't really around much, but because he was still in the picture, Mum didn't really explain magic to us. So, my sister and I, she's a sixth year now, kind of had to figure it all out by ourselves."

"That's a bit scary for me." Rory admitted. "It's this whole other world of stuff that I just don't know what to do with."

Kirley tentatively reached out and moved his hand to rest on her shoulder, when she didn't move away, he nodded and squeezed lightly. "Look, Rory, I'm going to give you a bit of advice I really wished my sister had told me before I got to Hogwarts." He said, making sure she was looking him in the eye. Rory got the feeling this was going to be one of the most important pieces of advice she'd ever receive in her life. "Change is difficult. Worldview and normality keep us safe, prepared. We know what we want to do, we know where the dangers are when we're prepared and when something major happens to change how you see the world, sometimes you can fight back and try to make things go back to how they are." He dropped his hand to his lap. "Fear is real and it's good. You can't have bravery without fear. Sometimes it just takes something a little extra to unlock the potential we didn't know we had in ourselves." He finished, smiling down to her encouragingly.

Rory opened her mouth to speak before she saw a hand fly out of nowhere and clap Kirley on the back. She turned to see Myron grinning at him and Pez and Bill with raised eyebrows. "Damn, Kir, if I didn't know you were a natural Ravenclaw, I might've thought that was pretty wise."

Kirley caught Rory's eye from the corner of his and gave her a small eye roll. She smiled back in turn before realizing the moment was gone and turning into a conversation with Bill.

She was going to have to find a way to say thanks to Kirley later. She hadn't realized she needed that advice until he'd given it to her and crazily enough, it was the exact right thing to say.

TYA

_Dear Mum,_

_I told myself I would start writing this the moment I got on the train, but I have to admit it's been a couple of hours since I walked into the compartment and I think my head is going to explode._

_I already made some new friends, which I can't believe and two of them are in second year, so I've been asking them questions for the last several hours. Like, there are apparently stairs all over Hogwarts that change direction and lead to random areas of the castle. Hogwarts is a castle as I've found out. You won't believe what they had to say about the meals in the great hall, I think they would put Aunt Annie to shame._

_To be honest, I was really scared about what might happen when I get there, what house I would be in, the people I would meet, the classes, whether or not I'm really cut out for magic, but the truth is, and this is advice that was given to me by an apparently very wise person, fear is a good thing. Fear is what helps us be brave and learn from experience. Fear keeps us safe and helps us assess the world around us. Very hard to learn I think for an eleven-year-old, but I'm going to give it a try._

"Anything from the trolley, Dears?"

Rory folded the paper she was writing on and looked up from the corner of the compartment. Bill and Pez and given her some space to write that she was grateful for, but they had now both moved closer to the door to see what was on offer. Rory looked into her little purse at the small amount of money she had there. She could see handful of Knuts in Bill's hand and wondered at what he would be getting, but found she wasn't all that interested in sweets. "You want anything, Rory?" Bill asked over his shoulder, handing over the Knuts and accepting the every flavour beans in return.

"Nah, I don't actually eat all that many sweets." She admitted, crossing her legs and looking out the window.

"Do you want a Pumpkin Pasty then?" Bill asked, pointing at them.

Not knowing what a Pumpkin Pasty was, Rory frowned over to him and looked where he was pointing. "I don't know what that is."

"It's a bit like a Cornish Pasty. Except it's pumpkin instead of meat and veggies." Kirley informed her, handing over a couple of sickles for the three or four chocolate bars and stack of cauldron cakes she could see in his arms.

Rory thought for a moment. She didn't have pumpkin, so she didn't see the harm in trying and she was hungry after all. She stood up then and stepped over to the small crowd and surveyed the goods. It appeared it wasn't all sweets after all, though she did wish they had a lunch trolley or something. "Hm, okay I'll grab a Pumpkin Pasty, a Jelly Doughnut and… is that apple juice?" The witch nodded. "I'll grab two bottles please, Bill do you want one?"

She watched the look of confusion fall over his face. "Why?"

"Well, you've got those every flavour beans, you'll need something to wash the taste down with if it's a bad one." She wasn't sure what the big deal was.

He seemed conflicted for a moment, a wave of emotions flowing over him before he shrugged. "Sure, if you want to, I'll pay you back, promise."

Rory shrugged and handed over the 4 sickles and 12 Knuts the items cost before handing one of the juices to Bill. "Sure, take your time. I'm not in a rush I still have a bit of money left." She still had at least 3 Galleons, a handful of Sickles and a bunch of Knuts to work with, so really, she was thrilled.

Pez sat down without buying anything, whilst Myron was attempting to juggle all the random sweets he'd managed to grab off the cart. Rory wasn't sure why he'd grabbed so many since they were now only about four hours or so out from their destination, as the Prefects had walked along the train to tell them. "Are you going to be able to eat all of those?"

Myron shook his head with a laugh. "Of course not, this is like 15 galleons worth of stuff you know. This is going to last me all year." He told them. "You all should follow my example. The sweets cart is less expensive than at Honeydukes, so jokes on you."

Bill smiled, and Pez shook her head. Rory and Kirley looked at each other before both springing forward to steal handfuls of Myron's precious sweets. Myron, to his credit, fought valiantly, but was unable to batter away the onslaught and didn't manage to save the three chocolate frogs or packets of licorice and sherbet lemons that the pair snatched. Stifling their laughter, Rory threw the sweets back to him and carefully opened her Pumpkin pasty, biting into it and finding herself surprised at the taste. It was curiously warm, which she wouldn't have believed if she'd not felt it herself and it seemed that the pumpkin wasn't the only taste either, though she couldn't quite pick the second taste. "Oh my god, this is actually really good." She said, eyes wide.

Pez grinned. "Wizarding food is so good because you can use magic to preserve and heat and all sorts of other things you can't do in the muggle world."

Myron nodded. "True, my mother cooks one day a week and just preserves everything, talk about food prepping."

Bill shook his head. "My mum loves to cook, she spends all day in the kitchen sometimes."

Rory laughed. "Yeah, my mum is actually a teacher, so she doesn't get to spend much time in the kitchen, but she works really close to where we live, and we go to the same school she works in, so it makes things easier, or at least I used to go to the school she worked in." She knew it had been hard for her mother to do that, but after her parents separated they hadn't have much choice. Maybe this would work out better for her mother in the long run.

"Were you writing a letter to her?" Kirley asked. Rory noted that he'd not handing the sweets he'd taken back to Myron yet.

"Yeah, she's a muggle, like I said, so she doesn't know anything about magic. I'm detailing it to her a little bit, not that I have much to say yet."

Bill smiled. "I'm sure she appreciates it anyway." He opened the bottle of apple juice and took a sip. "Blegh, that one was snot, I'm sure of it."

Pez's lips grew tight in an attempt to keep her laughter at bay. "Make a habit of eating enough snot to know the taste, do you?"

Bill rolled his eyes. "Just because you don't eat a nutritious breakfast."

"Woah, big words there, Billy."

Bill rolled his eyes at Myron before holding out his beans. "Anyone game?"

Rory thought to the packet still sitting in her trunk. She hadn't been game enough to try them at home, because she wasn't sure how true the whole _every flavour beans_ thing was. "So, when they say _every flavor…_"

Bill nodded. "Yeah, they mean every flavour. You have normal ones of course, which I think are the most common and then you have the not so normal ones like spinach and salmon. My dad says he got a dog food one once and I'm almost sure I tricked myself into a fried egg."

Myron whistled. "I had a liver flavored one once and it was awesome."

Pez rolled her eyes. "I've never had a bad one really, I don't like lemon though and I seem to get those a lot."

"That would be right, they are magic beans, basically, probably know you hate them and make you keep eating them." Kirley added, shrugging.

Rory investigated the box Bill was slowly waving in her face and scoffed. "Oh, alright. I'll give it a try, what's the worst that could happen?"

Bill waggled his eyebrows at her as she stuck her hand into the box and pulled out a white bean. She sniffed it, but it gave nothing away. "Do the colours correspond to the flavour?"

Pez shrugged. "Mostly, I think, but I like to close my eyes."

"It's cheating otherwise." Bill confirmed.

"Well, too late now, I saw the colour. Just have to taste it I guess."

Kirley had a clear look of someone who knew something she didn't, and she had a horrible feeling that he knew what the flavour was but didn't want to tell her. "It's adventurous." Was all he allowed.

Throwing caution to the wind, Rory popped the small white bean into her mouth and regretted it instantly. "SOAP! No, God, this is cruelty!" She cried out, swallowing the bean and quickly fumbling with her apple juice to try and open it, with little success.

The compartment fell into streams of laughter as they watched her try her luck with her stubborn bottle cap, but fail miserably, until Bill took pity on her and opened it for her. She immediately downed almost half the bottle before she coughed and sighed. "I hate you all."

The compartment fell into laughter once more as Rory pouted. Though, even as she did so, she knew the bite of her words wasn't serious and, honestly, why would she hate people who are open to showing her a whole new world.


	4. Chapter 4 The Sorting Ceremony

**Chapter Four: The Sorting Ceremony**

The train came to a stop at the last station. On the way over, as they were all changing into their robes, Myron had informed her that this was Hogsmeade station. Here they would go their separate ways but would see each other again up at the castle. Rory was terribly excited. She couldn't wait to see what the castle was like. She had seen a couple of pictures in her books - moving pictures! – but she was almost certain they hadn't done the true beauty of the castle any justice. These things never seemed to translate as well in pictures as they did in real life. Not to mention all the photos were in the day time and she wanted to know what it was like in the night time. She was sure it looked amazing by candlelight – "there's no electricity at Hogwarts!" – She wished her father had told her that.

"COM'ON, FIRST YEARS, OUT OF TH' TRAIN. THAT'S IT DON'T BE SHY NOW!" A booming voice that sounded as if it was from a megaphone, though there was none in sight, called attention to a very tall, large individual who hair was so wild it covered almost all of his face. An imposing figure of myth if ever she saw one. He was taller than she thought would be humanly possible and so much larger than a normal man she thought the ground might shake if he fell over. "THAT'S RIGHT FIRST YEARS, DOWN TH' PLATFORM. WE'RE TAKIN' A LITTLE TRIP O'THE SCHOOL HERE!"

Rory kept staring as she followed the stream of students down the platform to the imposing figure of the man. Despite his clearly looming size and loud voice, Rory very much got the impression that he wouldn't hurt a fly, though she wasn't sure why. "Who's that?" She asked side eyeing him as she leaned into Bill.

Bill looked over. "Must be Hagrid. My mum and dad mentioned him."

"Why's he so…"

"So tall?" he asked, reading her mind. "Yeah, Mum said he's a part-giant."

"A what?!" The exclamation was so loud that Bill clamped his hands over her mouth hoping no one was looking at them.

"Shh, don't be rude."

"A part-giant?" She asked in disbelief, throwing his hands away. "How, what? Giants are real?"

Bill nodded. "Of course, they are." He said, nodding in Hagrid's direction. "Living proof. Normal giants can't use wands, only wizards are allowed. Excuse me, or witches, so giants don't normally tend to hang around here. His wand-wielding side probably allowed for him to use magic."

"Just how tall are giants?" She asked, not sure if she actually wanted to know the answer.

Bill looked at her, a knowing look in his eye as he again read her mind with alarming accuracy. "Only ask if you want to know, McKinnon."

"He's like a billion inches tall, right? So, if he's only half then…"

Bill nodded. "Yeah, most Giants come to about an average height of twenty feet I would say."

Rory blinked at him in confusion. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Dragons, Goblins, Giants. She was expecting someone to bring out an elf next.

"Hurry up, you're in the way!" A tall blonde with a half sneer on her face scowled at them as she stomped past. Rory was sure she distinctly heard the girl cursing the tall giant and other unmentionable things as they walked and though Rory didn't understand half of what the girl was muttering, she had a sudden urge to flick something at her.

"ALRIGHT FIRST YEARS, FOLLOW ME TO THE BOATS UP T'HOGWARTS." Hagrid called a final time and turned, heavily, taking long strides down the platform towards a lake that appeared to be filled with little boats. The lantern light, which, admittedly, Rory wasn't a huge fan of – she'd never really liked the dark – shone across the path down to the water, which was such a deep black that she thought it might have been made from ink, or that the night sky had decided to drop and cover the land in water. She read too many fantasy novels.

They were instructed to move themselves into groups of four to comfortably fit into all the boats. Bill, Pez and Rory immediately stepped together and a small boy with bad skin and brown hair was placed with them. Rory smiled encouragingly at him, the look on his face one of fright and confusion, but also of awe. It was a look she had seen on herself enough times to guess the boy might've been a muggleborn. "What's your name?" She asked as they folded themselves into the boats. Bill and Pez had taken the first slat which left Rory and the boy with the back slat.

His voice was timid, but deep, not something she expected from him. "Oswin Dadry."

Rory nodded. "I'm Aurora Walker – McKinnon. My friends call me Rory."

Oswin nodded and held tight to the side of the boat. He didn't seem like one who liked water. His pale face turned even paler when the boats started moving. Pez turned back to laugh in delight, but noting the sick look to Oswin, she remained tight lipped and immediately turned back to the front. Bill was whispering something in her ear, but Rory couldn't hear it over the chattering of poor Oswin's teeth. "It's okay, Oswin." She tried to console him, but it didn't appear to be working.

"I … I read about this." He said, his voice growing smaller with fear or confusion she wasn't sure. "Beneath the Black Lake lay a Giant Squid." He informed, reading something from his memory.

Rory shook her head. "I don't believe that."

"Don't you?" He asked, turning slightly – enough to see her out of the corner of his eye – and wincing. "Giants… Goblins… magic." He tightened his hold on the boat. "What's one more?"

He did have a point, she had to concede, but it seemed that the thought of this giant squid was only making the ordeal that much worse for the poor guy. She wished she could do something to comfort him, but short of jumping in to prove him wrong, well, she wasn't sure what would even help in this kind of situation. If anything even would. "Are you a muggleborn, Oswin… can I call you Oswin?"

He nodded numbly, though he didn't indicate which question he was answering and so she continued anyway. "Magic is… special. It's beautiful from what I've seen of it. I was raised as a muggle for my whole life, then I found out I had magic and it was crazy, but you can't let fear of the unknown dictate your life." She told him gently, finding courage in the words spoken to her only hours ago. "You just have to make a choice."

Turning away from him, letting him stew on her words, she leaned forward to poke her head between Bill and Pez who were currently occupied in an animated conversation about… did she hear the words Goblin Rebellion? Deciding against getting involved, she shook her head and sat back. She didn't know enough to even try to get involved in that conversation. Whatever it was even about.

Rory didn't have long to wait, because all too soon the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy which hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of under-ground harbour, where they clambered out onto the rocks. Rory offered a hand to Oswin but the poor guy sat there shaking until Hagrid walked over and scooped him out and the rest of them looked around in awe. Rory cursed herself that she didn't pay enough attention as they were coming in to get a good look at the castle, but she would remember for next time. She wanted to be able to describe every minute detail to her mother.

They followed Hagrid up a passageway in the rocks that Rory had completely overlooked before coming out on smooth, damp grass. The Castle loomed above them and Rory gasped in delight at the sight. Behind her, Bill was muttering to himself and Pez seemed only too keen to race ahead of the crowd. She didn't though, and Rory was grateful not to be the only one who seemed in awe of the place. They continued walking up a flight of steps made of hard stone and crowded around the huge, oak front door. Rory couldn't wait to get inside.

Hagrid knocked on the doors quickly and they immediately swung open to reveal a stern woman, her dark hair pulled tightly into a bun. There was no risk of a stray wisp falling in her face at all. Rory thought she looked rather like a bird, with her keen eyes appraising them for any wrong doing.

"The firs'-years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said, stepping aside to reveal them all.

"Thank you, Hagrid, I will continue from here." It was an exchange that was routine, Rory realised, and she thought perhaps this was what was expected of every year. The Professor pulled the doors open wider revealing the massive Entrance Hall. Rory didn't think she'd ever seen a place so big that was only used for greeting. She couldn't believe the sheer size of the place and the more she was seeing, learning, the more homesick for her mother she was getting, not that she was terribly worried about that. She was excited too, to share this new world with her family and new friends.

They followed Professor McGonagall through the open doors, past another set of double doors – through which Rory could hear many, many voices – into a small empty chamber. Rory wasn't sure what this place was for, but she imagined they needed to get things ready before they could bring the hat out, which she had to admit, she was really looking forward to. A talking hat? What a great thing to see!

Before she moved on, the Professor welcomed them to Hogwarts and beckoned them all to gather around her as she spoke. "The start of term banquet will begin momentarily, but before you may head in and take your seats you will all be sorted into your houses. Whilst you are here, your house will be like your family and you will be rewarded and punished according to any rule breaking or achievements you make. Your classes will sometimes be split between houses, but you will all have separate dormitories, be sure you remember where the entrances are, if you get lost, you'll have to find a housemate to help you."

She took a moment for people to process what she was saying before she continued. "The four houses, as most of you probably know are called Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. Each house has its own history and expectations and have all produced a number of successful witches and wizards. Whilst you are here you will remember that any rule breaking will lose you points for your house but following the rules will gain you house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will do your house credit."

She gestured for them all to neaten themselves up as she left them to their own devices for a few minutes. Rory scanned the room for her friends and immediately noticed Pez's green tipped hair towards the front and muscled her way through. She couldn't quite see where Bill had got to, but could see the look of excitement on Pez's face and grinned at her. "Can you believe this, we're actually here!" She said, clapping her hands in front of her chest in delight.

Rory laughed and nodded. "I know, it's incredible. I never would have believed all of this if I'd not seen it for myself."

"I believe the Professor told us to be quiet." Sneered a voice from behind them. Rory turned around to notice it was the same rude blonde from earlier and rolled her eyes.

"You don't have to worry, I'm sure she won't punish you for our loudness." Pez told her, her mouth set in a hard line that made Rory wonder if she knew the blonde.

"Oh, don't give me that, Anderson, you know as well as I do that some Professors like to gang up on students and send them all to detention." The blonde fired back, crossing her arms and popping her hip in an effort to appear to maintain the moral high ground.

Pez rolled her eyes skyward this time. "I don't really remember asking your opinion."

Rory held her hands out to both of them. "Woah, hey, hang on, we don't have to fight you know. We can talk more quietly, and you can move away if you're that bothered."

The blonde's eyes roamed over Rory, slitted and appraising, sizing her up. Rory was uncomfortably reminded of a lizard, though she hadn't a clue why. Maybe it was the way the girl was swaying, trying to unnerve her. "Three guesses what your blood status is." She sneered, looking over her shoulder at a brunette who was snickering into her hand.

This annoyed Pez, who stood in front of Rory defensively. "Oh really, you sure about that, McNair?"

McNair glared at Pez, flexing her fingers, a movement Rory figured meant she was itching to reach for her wand. "You're not much better, are you, Anderson, living in that filthy excuse for a house, all those muggle-lovers surrounding you. What more can you expect from a group home run by glorified babysitters."

Immediately Pez went for her own wand and McNair was ready, aiming hers between the both of them, spell on her lips. They were interrupted, thankfully not by Professors, but by the sudden appearance of floating, grey figures – ghosts. Rory shrieked in surprise and Pez nearly dropped her wand when one of the ghosts, a young-looking woman with her hair piled on top of her head, glided through her.

McNair shivered, but shook it off before dropping her arm and sliding her wand back into the pocket of her robes. Rory couldn't be sure, but she was almost positive this was the kind of behavior they were going to get into trouble for.

"What on Earth were the two of you doing, did I see a wand?" Asked a strangely dressed ghost with what looked like curly hair.

"I sincerely hope you did not, Sir Nicholas." Professor McGonagall was back, and Rory tried to step in front of Pez as she hastily hid her wand in her robes. The look the Professor sent them said that she suspected they were up to no good but hadn't actually seen anything. Rory made a mental note to never knowingly cross this woman.

"If you'll all follow me, I'll lead you into the Great Hall where you will be sorted." She turned on her heel, and somehow silently, lead them out through the doors they'd first come through and over to the double doors Rory had noticed earlier. She was excited to see just what the sorting ceremony was like, she had a fairly rough idea, from everything her father had told her, but she was still very curious. A talking hat, she still didn't believe it.

The hall, very aptly named the Great Hall, Rory noted, was even bigger than she'd first thought, with four long tables filled with students running along the length of it. There was a fifth high table at the front of the hall that seemed to seat the staff, if their age was anything to go by and right at the very centre was a rather elderly man with a long beard and half-moon spectacles in a deep burgundy robe. Looking up, Rory's mouth dropped open when she noticed that the entire roof was covered by floating candles, yet looking beyond those was the sky outside, looking every bit as lovely as it had on the way in. The stars were twinkling away as if in greeting and Rory couldn't wait to learn more about all of it.

The students all stopped at the bottom of the steps up to the staff table and waited anxiously as Professor McGonagall placed a stool and a hat in front of them. Rory stared at it eagerly, wanting the proceedings to begin immediately but uncertain as to what was to be done. She could see Pez almost vibrating beside her and she could hear Bill talking quietly behind. They didn't have long to wait though because soon enough the hat began to twitch and a rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth. Rory didn't know what she was expecting, but a song was definitely not it:

"_Whether you be short or tall,_

_Thin as a rail or big as a boar,_

_We judge you not by what we see,_

_But what is in your head for me._

_A better hat you will not find,_

_As rightly able to sort your kind._

_I am the Hogwarts sorting hat_

_And you will listen with a straightened back,_

_As I put you in your place._

_The founders four knew what to do,_

_And picked their lot from this motley crew._

_But never fear for I am here and I can do it too._

_Listen well_

_For your houses here,_

_Are all quite different too._

_First you have the brave and true,_

_Gryffindor will protect._

_Those favoured by the duelist will often try their best._

_Next there is wise Ravenclaw,_

_A finer treasure you will not find,_

_Than in the books she left behind._

_Second to none is the cunning house of Slytherin,_

_A place where loyalty is tested,_

_They will always find their kind._

_Lastly, but never least, is a fair and just lot,_

_This group of Hufflpuffs will study hard,_

_And always find their inner shot._

_Step right up and let us see where you belong._

_Each one of you is different,_

_So thanks for listening to this song."_

The hall burst into raucous applause and Rory happily joined in. The hat bowed to each of the four tables before becoming quite still again. Rory watched it excitedly, wondering who would go first, when Professor McGonagall appeared in front of them again, this time with a long parchment in hand. "When I call your name, you will step up to the stool and place the hat on your head to be sorted," She said, looking down at the names. "Aldridge, Timothy!"

A tall boy with glasses stepped confidently up to the stool and quickly pulled the hat over his head. The Hat immediately shouted –

"RAVENCLAW"

The boy quickly took off to be seated at the table second from the left. It was all so new and fascinating for Rory. Pez was next, though Rory almost missed it as the Professor called out her full name, Anderson, Penelope, which, frankly, Rory had almost forgotten. Her excitable friend almost tripped over her own feet, but managed to hide it with grace as she rushed eagerly up the steps.

"SLYTHERIN"

There was another Slytherin sorted after Pez, a boy this time, Avery, Evan. Next was two Ravenclaws in succession a Bovin, Laurel and Clearwater, Eliza. After them, the boy Rory had met in the boat, sweet Oswin, was the first Hufflepuff. Rory was terribly excited by all of this. She looked towards the tables when they applauded their new companions and was pleased that it seemed to be a moment of celebration. As it should be, she thought, even though some of these people clearly knew what this sort of thing was about, she could see they were all still terribly excited.

She stopped paying attention for a little while, knowing her name was not going to be up until towards the end. Even though her name was hyphenated, Walker-McKinnon, she assumed they would be using the first part of her name, since that was how she was addressed, which didn't really bother her all that much.

"McNair, Anthea."

Though she didn't know the girl, Rory's attention was caught as she felt the girl from earlier shove past her and up onto the stairs. She was in an annoying way, one of the girls who always looked like they didn't put any effort into their appearance. Rory rolled her eyes. It wasn't like her to base her assumptions of people by the way they looked, but her interactions with Pez earlier and the fact that she'd been sneered at twice by this girl, was not making her a favorable person. The sorting hat sat on her head for a moment, but it didn't take too long before –

"SLYTHERIN"

Rory immediately looked over to the table to see Pez frowning in annoyance. She didn't think her friend would be happy to be sorted into the same house as the girl, but she would have to talk to her later. Mulciber, Arona, the girl who had been laughing into her hand during the fight was also sorted into Slytherin. Another name was called, though Rory had been preoccupied with Bill whispering a joke into her ear to hear it, but they were immediately followed by another Slytherin, Parkinson, Lily. Rory was beginning to think the whole school was going to be sorted into Slytherin. She didn't know much about the houses, only what her father had told her and that wasn't much. She really had no idea where she would go herself. She just hoped it was a house that she would thrive and make friends in.

The first Gryffindor of the night was called with Roberts, Ashley, dancing her way to the table furthest to the right. Rory laughed excitedly at the girl's antics when she got a little dizzy and stumbled to sit. One of the older students had to help her onto the bench, which was apparently cause for the Professors to shake their heads, though she couldn't tell if it was from amusement or something else entirely.

It was getting closer to her name now and Aurora quickly turned her attention back to the names being called. She didn't want to miss out!

"Tyler, Emily."

A prim sort of girl with her hair pulled into a tight, short ponytail gracefully stepped up to the sorting hat. She seemed to shuffle the hat slightly on her head, like she was making sure not to ruin her neat hair. She sat on the stool for a few minutes and Rory began to wonder what might have been taking so long when the hat suddenly announced that she was a Gryffindor. Emily smiled to herself and plucked the sorting hat off of her head, sitting it gently back on the stool and slowly, making a show of it, walked her way over to the rowdiest table.

"Walker-McKinnon, Aurora."

Rory was suddenly nervous as all eyes were on her. She was one of the last to be sorted, so naturally people were beginning to pay more attention, so they didn't miss any cues. She licked her lips and was trying desperately to move forward, though her shaky legs were making it very difficult. There were only a handful of kids left now, and Rory looked over her shoulder at them, only to see Bill grinning at her as he pushed her roughly forward. Rory skidded to a halt at the foot of the stairs and looked up at Professor McGonagall who seemed to be looking at the remaining eleven-year old's harshly, or perhaps she was visually reprimanding Bill with her eyes, Rory couldn't tell. She gathered her courage, what little there appeared to be and carefully took the steps one by one. She took a shaky breath, sat on the stool and pulled the hat over her eyes. She didn't want to see everyone looking at her.

"_I can see the nerves in your mind, child, chin up, there's nothing to fear here."_ Rory almost fell off the chair when she realised that the hat could talk in her head. She supposed it made a lot of sense as most of the people she'd watched being sorted seemed to be concentrating on something, though she hadn't thought much of it.

"_I can see into your head, child, I see everything you value and everything you want. Your kindness and wish to fit in is very apparent and I see great deference to hard work and study will be your path." _Rory wasn't entirely sure what the hat was talking about, but she was happy to let him keep going.

"_All of it is in here, in your head, but you're no pushover, are you? You're not just going to stand by and let someone hurt your friends, not if you can help them. I think it's quite clear, Dear, where it is you belong."_ Rory was excited to find out and pulled the hat up slightly to look out at Bill as the hat shouted "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Rory heard the last word and the nervousness she was feeling suddenly subsided. Despite it all, she really had thought that maybe this was all a big mistake and she wouldn't even be placed in a house at all. That was a bit ridiculous of course, she had a wand now and she knew she was a witch, her father had told her so. But until she performed her first bit of proper magic, she wasn't going to be entirely convinced. She took the hat off quickly and made her way to the Hufflepuff table, grinning at Kirley as he waved her across. She was excited to get to know the people in her house and learn all about magic. She took her seat beside Oswin, who was looking terrified as he stared at the pudgy ghost of a monk who was happily engrossed in a conversation with a boy on his right. Rory carefully clapped a hand on Oswin's shoulder who started and turned to see her. He might have looked relieved, were he not busy focused on everything else happening right now.

"Weasley, William."

Rory immediately turned around to see Bill wink at her as he walked up the steps confidentially and placed the hat on his head. The hat didn't wait very long before it announced that Bill was a "GRYFFINDOR."

Bill high-fived her as he walked past and quickly shook hands with Myron, as West, Roger, was made Gryffindor as well. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat and stool away.

Rory looked down the row of new first years. She could tell because they all seemed as lost as she was, not really knowing what was to happen next. She was going to remember to bring proper food with her for the next train ride, since it seemed a long time to wait for food. "Welcome to all!"

Rory realised that the elderly wizard she had noticed earlier now stood with his arms raised and a cheerful smile on his face. Though given half was covered by his exceptionally long beard, Rory could only guess that he was smiling. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts, I am delighted that you all could make it. Now, before we get started, I would like to address a few things." He said, and the room quickly took a dive. The once smiling faces were now tinged with a sadness that she didn't understand. "I am sure we are all aware of what happened last year, I was not able to address it then, but please if you need to speak to someone about anything relating to the incident in question, we have elected to bring in a very qualified counsellor to help," he gestured to the far end of the table to his left. "Ms Evelyn Beriggins. Please seek her out should you need any help."

"Might be good for OWLS and NEWTS." Rory heard one of the older students say from further down the table.

"I'd like to introduce you to your new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, as Mrs Edwena Aristou. She's a recently retired Auror who comes to us with many, many years of experience." The Professor said. Rory watched as he gestured to the chair next to him where an elderly woman with paper thin skin and ashy grey hair was sitting. Rory wasn't sure she was long for this world.

"That's it, thank you!"

He sat back down, and everyone clapped and cheered. Rory had to blink at the ferocity of the cheers and wondered at who he was. "Who is that?"

One of the older students scoffed at her. "You don't know? That's Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster. He's a genius."

Rory nodded, though she wasn't sure what the man was given he seemed like a normal sort of person to her, if maybe a very old person. Suddenly, the dishes along the tables filled with all manner of food, from potatoes and chips to roast beef and chicken. There were mountains piled high of rolls and vegetables everywhere. It was the biggest kind of feast she'd seen in her life and she didn't think she'd ever had quite so many options. It was all terrifying and exciting. "Where'd it all come from?" She heard one of the other first years ask.

"Who knows?" Answered another. "Don't worry about it and just eat, we don't know how long we have!"

"I'm sure it won't disappear," said a boy with piercing blue eyes. "They don't want to starve us."

"I didn't eat much on the train." Said the first voice. Rory noticed it was a boy with spiky brown hair and a scar over his left eyebrow.

"One of the boys on the train with me said I should've stocked up from the sweets trolley," Rory said, finding this the ample time to jump into the conversation amongst her peers. "He said they're cheapest then, and they last him throughout the year because they're more expensive at Honeydukes."

There were three gasps of shocked annoyance. A female voice groaned. "I knew I should have grabbed more. I've only got a chocolate frog and a packet of beans left!" She cried, dropping her head to the table, narrowly missing her plate of mashed potatoes.

"You'll be alright, Shiv." The boy with the blue eyes said, "if anyone can trade for sweets, it's you."

Spiky brown hair was nodding in agreement as he chomped on a stick of celery. "He's right. You'll be fine."

Rory looked at all the available food before deciding on some of the pumpkin soup sitting in front of her. It was nice to have so much variety, but she didn't want to make herself sick.

"I can't wait for classes to start." One of the older students was saying. "I hope that new Professor is going to be okay, if you ask me she looks like she's about to drop!"

"I heard she was forced to retire, apparently she's had a desk job now for years!" His friend said, leaning into the conversation. Rory hoped that wasn't true, she wanted to learn everything she could and the idea that a teacher might not be good was a little upsetting.

"We don't talk like that at this table." Called a voice from further up. "If you want to speak like that, I'll have a word to Professor Sprout about allowing you to transfer to Gryffindor." She said, looking sternly over to the chattering boys, who immediately looked ashamed and silently stared at their full plates. Rory saw a glint of a pin on her robes and had a distinct feeling that she might have been a prefect. She carried that sort of authoritative tone.

"Ah yes, the gossip of children, ah for the days of silence that followed these halls." The portly ghost from earlier was saying, flying up from where he was sitting and disappearing through the ceiling.

"The Fat Friar's gone melancholy again, someone go find Professor Flitwick!"

Rory was surprised by the amount of chatter, given it was so early in the school year, but she was delighted at the prospect of the people in her house being so friendly. "Who is Professor Flitwick?"

One of the older students heard her and smiled, gesturing to the staff table and to a small old man who was reaching over for his goblet. "He's the head of Ravenclaw house and the only person who can talk the Friar out of a funk. I'm not sure why, but I think they used to get on whilst he was a student here."

"You'll also want to know Professor Sprout," another student said, gesturing in the direction of a squat witch, with patchwork robes and wispy grey hair. Rory quite liked the look of her, she seemed almost like she would be quite motherly. "She's our head of house, if you ever have any problems you must go and see her, she'll make tea and cheer you right up."

"Oh, that sounds lovely, I do very much like tea." The girl, Shiv, spoke up, clearly over her earlier dismay about the sweets.

"She's the best Professor. She's our Herbology teacher, knows everything there is to know about the subject. I once heard her in an argument with Professor Flitwick over the application of plants over charms for healing. I'm not sure who won, but Flitwick seemed a little defeated that day."

Rory laughed along with the rest of her housemates at the thought and found herself smiling at the knowledge that she was probably in the best house. She thought maybe everyone thought that, but she was sure hers really was the best. She was sure the sorting hat would agree, besides, who didn't like yellow?

On her other side, Oswin seemed a little down and was hardly eating at all. He'd moved some of his food around, half a sausage and a bit of potato, but had hardly touched the food at all. "Oh, I do wish you'd cheer up, Oswin." Rory said, throwing an arm around his shoulders and accidentally startling him. "What have you got to fret about, the sorting is over and there's a lot of delicious foods. The lakes way behind us and we have some really cool classes to look forward to."

Oswin did not look at all comforted by any of this, but he at least put his head up a little, enough to reach over for a roll. It wasn't much later that all the food disappeared, only to be replaced by all kinds of desserts. Rory found herself aching for ice-cream but could not see any. She was going to have to ask about some but figured it might be hard to keep that kind of thing cold enough to sit out on the tables for very long. Magic had to have some limitations. Conjuring food was a ridiculous thing after all.

"Oh, no, the foods not conjured out of thin air!" Assured a voice from a little farther up the table.

Rory looked over to realise she'd spoken aloud and went slightly red. "Oh, where does it come from?"

The female student smiled down the table at her. "It comes from the kitchens. It's prepared by the house elves and then the Professors essentially summon the food here."

Rory blinked in confusion. "I'm sorry, did you say house elves?"

The girl was about to elaborate, but unfortunately, they were interrupted when Professor Dumbledore stood up and spoke again, the food disappearing. "Just a few more words now that we've all calmed down a bit. Mr. Filch has asked me to remind all students that the Forest on the Grounds is out of bounds to all students." He said, looking particularly closely to a couple of students in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. "It is called the _Forbidden Forest_ for a reason." He said, and Rory had to admit that was a pretty fair thing to say, though she wasn't sure why they would have a forest like that able to be wandered into without much resistance. "Quidditch tryouts will be held in the second week of term on the pitch, please see Madam Hooch, anyone who is interested." He gestured to a woman on the far end of the table with greying curly hair.

Rory watched as the witch nodded to a couple of the students, she assumed must have been on this Quidditch team, assuming it was a sport. She vaguely remembered it mentioned in one of her father's books and Bill had mentioned something similar in a conversation on the train. Though she didn't know if she would ever be able to play for a sport she didn't know anything about. The Professor kept speaking. "Just before we break, let's all sing the school song."

Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words. "Everyone pick their favorite tune," said Dumbledore, "and off we go!" And the school bellowed:

_"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,  
Teach us something please,  
Whether we be old and bald  
Or young with scabby knees,  
Our heads could do with filling  
With some interesting stuff,  
For now they're bare and full of air,  
Dead flies and bits of fluff,  
So teach us things worth knowing,  
Bring back what we've forgot,  
just do your best, we'll do the rest,  
And learn until our brains all rot._

Rory, who did not know the lyrics to the song, watched on in rapt attention. She was too busy reading the words that appeared on the banner to actually sing, but it was a mess. Everyone sang to a different tune, some of it was muggle music she recognised, and others were tunes that seemed entirely too complicated to bother trying. The song soon came to an end, with Professor Dumbledore continuing to conduct right up until the last person was finished, with a tune that Rory recognised as 70s Jazz song, Chet Baker's _Broken Wing. _She only recognised it because it was one of her mother's favourites. Once all were finished, Professor Dumbledore dismissed everyone back to their dorms.

Rory stood up with the rest of her housemates and followed the two prefects out of the Great hall. One directed them and the other stayed behind to pick up stragglers, namely, Oswin, who seemed quite content to remain exactly where he was, probably for the rest of his life had the prefect not carefully coaxed him up and following them. She wasn't sure where they were going, and she had lost sight of both Bill and Pez during the feast and so did not know where they had headed either. The rest of Hufflepuff had cleared out of the hall pretty quickly and so Rory was careful to follow along so she would remember the route when she had to find her dorm on her own. She had never been terribly good with directions after all.

"This way, first years. The entrance is just down here." Rory kept up her pace as they moved past a portrait that showed a fruit bowl and eventually ended up opposite a wall surrounded by a pile of large barrels, stacked in a shadowy stone recess on the right-hand side of the corridor. Rory thought this to be a rather odd place to stop but waited excitedly for what would happen. "Okay, pay attention, if you forget what I'm about to show you, you won't be getting into the dorms the way you want." Rory wasn't sure what that meant, but she didn't want to risk it and so paid close attention to the Prefect. The prefect tapped the barrel two from the bottom, middle of the second row, in a rhythm that Rory didn't recognise but hoped would be explained later.

A sloping, earthy passage inside the barrel traveled upwards a little way until a cosy, round, low-ceilinged room was revealed, reminiscent of a badger's sett. The room was decorated in the cheerful, bee-like colours of yellow and black, emphasised by the use of highly polished, honey-coloured wood for the tables and the round doors which lead to other rooms, and as they were explained, the dormitories. Rory looked around in awe at the colourful profusion of plants and flowers that seemed to relish the atmosphere of the Hufflepuff common room: various cacti stood on wooden circular shelves (curved to fit the walls), many of them waving and dancing at passers-by, while copper-bottomed plant holders dangling amid the ceiling caused tendrils of ferns and ivies to brush your hair as you passed under them.

A portrait over the wooden mantelpiece (carved all over with decorative dancing badgers) showed Helga Hufflepuff, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School, the Prefect explained, toasting her students with a tiny, two-handled golden cup. Small, round windows just level with the ground at the foot of the castle showed a pleasant view of rippling grass and dandelions, and, occasionally, passing feet. These low windows notwithstanding, the room felt perennially sunny.

Rory could not believe her luck. This was the kind of place she was adoring of. The similar gasps of excitement and shock around the room told her that she was not the only one who hadn't expected this. "Head on through those doors there, you'll be able to see what your dorms are like."

Unable to wait any longer, Rory grinned and moved quickly to the doors of the girl's dormitory as one of the girls in front of her, Shiv, pulled them open and quickly moved through. The dorm was furnished with comfortable wooden bedsteads, all covered in patchwork quilts. Rory fell instantly in love. She couldn't wait to be able to explore the rest of the castle.


	5. Chapter 5 A Day at Hogwarts

**Chapter Five: A Day at Hogwarts**

**a/n: I speak Auslan, Australian Sign Language. I've been trying to look up and learn some British sign for this fanfic, but please be patient if some of the signs aren't quite right. I'm studying it all online for free, which is extremely difficult because I'm mostly going off of pictures, which don't give much. I inherently disagree with learning languages like sign for free, but I don't really have the time or ability to go to paid classes right now, so this is all really rough! If anyone who reads this speak british sign, please let me know!**

* * *

As it turned out, Rory's bed was the first as they entered the room and she immediately slid herself onto it. The other six girls quickly followed. She looked at all of the initials on the cases, hoping to get a better idea of who all of them were. KP was next to her, she looked up to see a tallish girl spread sleepily across her bed, her head and legs dangling over the sides. From this vantage point, Rory couldn't see her face, but she seemed nice enough from the way she was making herself comfortable. Next to KP was MS who was sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, brushing a dolls hair. She had shoulder length black hair, similar to the dolls. Directly across from Rory was the girl, Shiv. She was currently twisting her deep red hair into a braid, untwisting it and then twisting it again. A nervous habit perhaps? The bed in the corner belonged to YO. She was clearly of Asian descent and her long black hair was streaming down around her face, blocking both her and the book she was reading from view. Rory sat up to look at the last two beds, both girls were sitting facing each other. TA and LK. TA had lightly tanned skin and a smattering of freckles on her face, but Rory rather thought it was the girls laugh that was her best feature. LK was wearing a yellow head scarf and hiding her mouth behind her hand as she laughed at whatever the other girl had said.

"I think we should all introduce ourselves." Shiv said suddenly, turning to wave her arms at all of them and gesture for them to get to the edges of their beds. "I'm Shiv, who've we got?" She pointed to Rory.

"Uh, I'm Aurora Walker-Mckenna, but mostly I go by Rory." Shiv smiled and moved her gaze to the girl next to Rory. KP. The girl didn't seem all that happy about having to sit up and sighed.

"Name's Kialla Peterson, just call me Kialla, or Peterson, I don't much care."

Rory laughed slightly at her, it seemed all the poor girl wanted to do was go to sleep, because the moment she'd finished talking she flung herself backwards onto the bed again.

"I'm Maryse, this doll was my grandmothers. I like to collect them and do things with their hair because I want to be a hair stylist one day." Rory nodded. It explained why she was brushing it so much.

Next was the shy girl. She looked up from over the top of her book but didn't seem all that inclined to say anything. Rory could understand how scary this all was, so she nodded at the girl. "We can come back to you if you like?"

She didn't answer but returned immediately to her book. The last two grinned happily and waved. "I'm Lila and this is my cousin, Tilly. We absolutely look forward to getting to know all of you."

Shiv smiled. "How come you're speaking for Tilly?" She asked, looking curiously at the pair of them.

"Tilly is deaf." Lila said, and instantly Rory realised that the girl was signing as she spoke so that her cousin would understand what was being said. "She has an interpreter for her classes and she will mostly be studying one on one with a tutor, but I figured during down time, outside of class, I can do most of that for her." She grinned, and Rory looked at Lila and waved at her, the only real sign she knew. Considering it was pretty universal, she wasn't even sure it counted.

Tilly grinned though and Lila laughed. "Tilly and I would be happy to teach you all basic signs if you wanted to learn."

At this, Kialla sat up. "Actually, yes, that would be a great idea. I always wanted to learn sign and never got around to it!"

Tilly turned to Lila and quickly signed something. Lila nodded and turned to the rest of the room. "Tilly is really excited if you all wanted to learn. She taught a group of students in her muggle school sign language and they used to use it to talk across the room behind the teachers back."

Rory nodded enthusiastically. "I would love to learn. It's only fair. If I want to have a conversation I need to be able to communicate."

She watched as Lila translated what she said back to Tilly who quickly walked over and wrapped her arms around Rory's neck in a tight hug. Rory laughed and gently pushed her away. "No worries at all. I don't know how long it will take me to learn, but I definitely want to give it a go."

"Who else wants to learn?"

The rest of the dorm all nodded, and the girls agreed that in the morning they would ask the entire house who wanted to learn. Tilly thought it would be a good idea to teach everyone a few basic signs, just so she could talk to them if she needed to, the Prefects for sure.

"Perhaps Professor Sprout would also like to learn?"

Lila nodded. "Yes, she's already been taking classes when she heard about Tilly. So, I might even ask her to help out from time to time, or she might pop in herself."

"Language is cool though, I already speak two others, so do you think this will be easy for me?" Shiv asked.

"That's great, what languages do you speak?"

"Gaelic, mostly for my gran. She refuses to speak English because she hates the British. But my Ma is French, so I speak that too."

Rory whistled. "I only speak English. And maybe a little bit of swear words from some other languages that I looked up. But it doesn't count."

Lila snorted. "Hardly. I only speak sign."

"Do you know swear words in sign?" Maryse asked, suddenly very curious at the prospect.

Tilly rolled her eyes. "It's the first thing you learn usually." Lila told them, shaking her head in amusement.

"When should we start lessons?" Rory asked eagerly.

Lila watched Tilly as she signed and nodded. "She thinks it would be best to start fresh. We're probably all supposed to be sleeping now or soon at least and being fresh and ready in the morning seems like a much better time."

YO, who hadn't been saying much at all, put her book down and slowly made a couple of gestures with her hands. Tilly eagerly signed back, and the conversation quickly devolved into rapid hand gestures.

Rory stared at them slightly gob smacked. Lila laughed. "Well, who knew?"

"Are you also deaf?" If she was, Rory realised it was a bit dumb to try calling out to her, especially if she was engaged in a conversation and not expressly looking out for someone to speak to her.

"No, but my grandmother is. I learned basic sign for her. Then I got interested in it and I started learning more. It's been a couple of years since I used it though. I'm a bit rusty."

"Not at all," Lila said, signing as she spoke. "Tilly and I both understand you just fine."

"I'm generally very shy." The girl said, shrugging. "You'll most likely see me hiding in a corner with my hair over my face reading. My sign is usually more reserved, but I got a little excited."

Tilly was apparently having a great time, because she was now animatedly moving her hands from the top of her head to her waist. Rory wasn't sure what was going on, but she seemed to be getting really involved in the conversation. "Sorry, what was your name, anyway?"

"Oh, Yuki. Sorry."

Kialla shook her head. "It's all good. Honestly, we all get a little shy sometimes. We'll protect you, we can be like a group."

Shiv nodded. "We're Hufflepuffs and Hufflepuff's are Huffletough."

Rory blinked. "Is that an actual saying, or…"

Mayse shook her head. "Definitely not. I do like it though."

"I think we should think about trying to get to bed. The Prefects will come to check on us soon, I'm sure." Kialla flicked the covers of her bed back. "I've been tired since we got here."

As if on cue, a strong voice shouted up from the common room. "You've ten minutes until we come up there and check on you. If it's not lights out, you'll all know it."

Shiv snorted. "Live and die a group, I guess."

"Tilly said Helga Hufflepuff was well known for believing in the group. We're all to hold ourselves and our peers responsible for what we do." Lila said, nodding at Tilly.

"She's probably right. I heard that when she was the Head of House, the students were often punished in a group. I don't know if I agree with that myself, but it apparently worked because most of the time they were well behaved, didn't turn each other in outside of the network. Became a close comradery of students." Kialla, who was now slowly changing out of her robes, told them.

Rory sighed and slipped off her bed, moving around to her trunk to do the same. "Well, I certainly don't intend on breaking any rules. Not in my first week at least."

Shiv didn't bother to even kick her shoes off, crawling immediately under the covers. "If you ask me, I'll cover for anyone. As long as I get something out of it. I don't know what yet, of course, but I'm sure favours do as well here as anywhere else."

"Just keep us out of it," Lila said, throwing her arm around Tilly. "We intend on making it to the end of our schooling."

Rory stood up, her robes now discarded on the edge of her bed. "How do you suppose we wash our clothes?"

"Oh, house elves."

Rory looked over to Maryse. "Sorry?"

"House elves. They wash your clothes for you. Leave things at the end of your bed and they come by and wash it all."

Rory shook her head. "They do not. What?"

This time Shiv nodded. "It's true. Hogwarts has House elf servants. They cook, they clean, they repair things. It's great."

"We have a house elf at home. She named Tilly." Lila kicked her shoes off.

"That's different. I wondered why your name was Tilly." Kialla said, looking over at her.

Lila grinned. "It was pretty hilarious. Our house elf, Piri, she has been with us forever and she never requested anything. Aunt Eryn thought it would be fun to let her name the next child born, which happened to be Tilly." She said, shaking her head. "Mum thought she was ridiculous, or that's how she tells it anyway."

The girls had all managed to get under their blankets during the conversation and though she had initially been worried about privacy, she realised it really wasn't all that much problem, she hadn't even noticed anyone else. It seemed the room layout was specifically designed to help with that and she was quite grateful. "Is it just me, or do you immediately feel at home here?"

There was a long moment of silence. "I do, actually." Rory wasn't quite sure who'd answered, the voice muffled, presumably by blankets. "Cozy."

Rory laughed slightly, pulling her blanket over her shoulder. "I was meant to finish my letter to my mum. I completely forgot."

"You can write it tomorrow. They'll probably let us go up to the Owlery."

"I assume that's where the Owls live?"

"Yep."

Not wanting to accidentally say anything else stupid, Rory quickly checked on her cat Salem, soundly sleeping in his cage before relaxing. She had to assume that Nibbles was in the Owlery, or she wouldn't have known where he was at all. Hopefully he would remember her. She had put a collar on him though.

TYA

Early the next morning, Rory was woken by a soft shuffling on her blankets. She immediately sat up in shock looking around at the unfamiliar room. She calmed down when she remembered where she was and looked down at her bed to see Salem curled happily between her legs. "Salem, how'd you get out of your cage?" She asked, leaning over to scratch behind his ear. He stretched himself out and rolled further into the scratch.

"Hey, you have a half-kneazle."

Rory looked up to see Kialla eyeing her from beneath her covers. "I'm sorry, a what?"

She sat up a little, the covers falling down to her waist. "A half-kneazle. It's a magical cat."

Rory looked down at Salem who was looking up at her with his stormy eyes. It was the reason she'd picked him. He'd looked so intelligent. "I thought he was just a cat." She said, watching as Salem rolled back over to continue his nap.

"He is, sort of. He's more intelligent than your average muggle cat. They can sniff out trouble from a mile away _and_ they can understand speech."

Rory frowned. She liked to think all animals could understand in one way or another. "So, like he knows what I'm saying?"

"Yeah." Kialla said, reaching over the abyss between the beds to scratch under his chin, which he seemed to enjoy. "I love kneazles, my Dad breeds them. You have to have a license to breed full kneazles, but half-kneazles aren't much different to your ordinary cats, except for the minor things."

Salem seemed to have had enough attention for now and gracefully rolled away from Kialla and jumped off the bed. "How can you tell he's a kneazle?" He looked like a normal cat to her.

She pointed to his slinking form and smiled. "The ears. All kneazle ears look like that. I could tell he was only half both by the fact that he's entirely black and that he doesn't have the typical kneazle tail. Most people wouldn't necessarily be able to tell just by looking, but I spent most of my life around them, you get to know these things."

Rory nodded and looked over to see Salem carefully slinking out of the dorm. She was about to get up and chase him, but Kialla stopped her. "Leave him. He's learning the castle. He's smart."

She was a little concerned. If he was a normal cat, as she had thought he was, she would want to keep him in the dorm if she could, or at least in the common room. Walking around like that could be dangerous. "I don't want him to wander into the Forbidden Forest or anything, he could get hurt." She said, remembering the feast last night.

"He'll be fine. It's generally only us humans that could get into trouble in there, he's a small cat, and he's smart, he'd be able to keep himself safe. Assuming he even goes in there." She assured her, sitting on the side of her bed to get out.

It was still early enough that the sun was low, and most of the other girls were still asleep except for Shiv, who's bed was empty. Rory kicked her own blankets off, yawning. She'd had a good sleep, which she was a little bit surprised by since she was convinced that she would have found it hard to sleep in a new bed. It was like the bed molded to what she liked, and the patchwork quilts were very homey. She hadn't noticed all the plants and vegetation in the dorms last night, but the sun streaming lowly through the windows, which were very high up to account for the fact that they were underground, allowed enough natural light in that she could finally see everything. It was stunning, in more ways than she could count.

"Oh Merlin, are those strawberries?"

Rory looked over to see Lila had woken up and was reaching out to a massive strawberry that was growing out of one of the plants on the wall near her bed. She pulled it off the vine and carefully bit into it, her eyes lighting up. "So?"

Lila nodded frantically and rushed to sit up. "Oh Merlin, these are amazing, oh, you need to try one of these." She said, tossing one in Rory's direction and then at Kialla.

Rory eyed it skeptically. Typically, in her experience, the larger the strawberry, the blander they tasted. Looking over at Kialla who was already biting into her strawberry though, she wasn't seeing any bad reactions. She shrugged and carefully bit into it. It was almost the size of an apple! "Oh, wow!" She said, staring at the strawberry in amazement.

"Right?"

Kialla shook her head at them before continuing to get dressed. "Don't fill up on those, breakfast is probably soon."

Rory watched her head out the door and wait as both she and Lila quickly got dressed. They didn't have to wear their robes yet, so both girls were wearing their own clothes. Though it was clear that they'd grown up in two very different places. Where Lila had twisted her hair up into a bun and pulled on a colourful set of pink and purple robes, Rory was wearing a black and white striped pinafore dress with a long white shirt underneath. She left her hair down as she normally did, though she did need to brush it later.

"Do you know what time it is?"

"Nope." Rory shrugged as she headed out the door and was flanked by both Kialla and Lila. The corridor to the common room was earthy, like walking through a dirt tunnel, though the dirt was neatly packed so not to get anyone dirty. Perhaps it was held back by magic, Rory didn't want to think about it too much, because it started giving her a headache when she tried to justify it all in her head.

"Shiv, we were looking for you, you weren't in your bed!"

Shiv looked up at the three of them walking down the path to the common room. "Was that your cat I saw earlier slinking around?" She asked, looking over at Rory.

"Yeah, he's half-kneazle apparently."

"Is that a fact?" She asked, sitting up from where she had been lying on the couch. "I know nothing about kneazles, I'm more of a crup person."

"A what?"

"We can get into a debate later." Lila said, "why are you up so early?"

Granted, they didn't actually know how early it was.

Shiv held up the book she had been reading. "I snuck to the library last night when you were all sleeping. They had a book on BSL that I grabbed. I was too excited last night after we talked, and I wanted to see how much I could do on my own."

Kialla lifted Shiv's leg to sit down beside her. "Did you sleep, like at all?"

Shiv snorted. "Sleep, what's that? This is Hogwarts, I can sleep when I'm dead."

"You'll definitely be in an early grave if you don't sleep." Rory shook her head, taking up residence in the too big armchair across from her.

"Wotcher! You lot are loud. Carrying all the way to the dorms."

Lila turned around to see Maryse standing behind her in the entrance to the dorms.

"I think Tilly was after you." She said gesturing behind her. Lila nodded and headed past her. Maryse stepped further into the common room and slumped into the chair. "That was the best sleep ever. Back home all I can here is my Parents in the lab."

"I thought I recognised your name!" Shiv sat up and scrambled to bow down in awe at Maryse. "Your parents are Eunice and Alfred Shadow of Shadow Co, the experimental potioneers."

Maryse rolled her eyes as the other girls leaned in. Rory got the feeling that Maryse wasn't pleased about being recognised. "Yeah, that's me. Everyone tells me they expect great potions results, but I know I'm going to be lucky to pass, I hate potions and I'm terrible at it. It all goes in one ear and out the other."

Rory sympathised with her. She didn't know what it was like to have famous parents obviously, but the thought that she was going to fail a subject was ever-present. She had no basis like most of these other students did. Potions, Charms Defence Against the Dark Arts. She didn't even know what half the words meant. Dark Arts seemed like it might be especially tough class to succeed in. She just hoped she was able to get it.

"We'll all help each other, don't worry about it." Kialla told her, leaning forward to pat the other girl on the leg. "Besides, it's first year. It can't be that hard, right?"

"My sister told me there's a new Professor. Some really young guy. I thought he would have been introduced at the feast." Shiv announced, scooting back away from Maryse to sit against the couch.

"You have a sister?" Rory was curious about how this worked. "Is she also a Hufflepuff?"

"Nah, she's too serious for that. She's in Ravenclaw, she's a third year."

"So, the house placement isn't a family thing?"

Maryse shrugged. "It can be," she crossed her legs. "Most families have the same values and upbringing so it's not unusual to have families in the same house, but siblings and cousins aren't carbon copies of each other, so it's also not uncommon for them to be sorted into other houses."

Rory nodded, though she wasn't quite sure that she fully understood. "So, it can all just be a bit random then?"

Kialla shrugged. "Maybe to us, but I'm sure it all makes sense to the sorting hat."

Rory wasn't sure she was ever going to get used to any of this.

"Yuki's still asleep." Lila called as she and Tilly stepped out of the corridor. "Tilly wants to wait for the rest of the house to wake up."

"I'm not even sure I know what time it is. I miss my clock." Rory sighed, lifting her knees up to her chest. She already knew she was going to love it here, but even still there were aspects of this place that made her miss her muggle life. And she'd only been out of it for less than twenty-four hours. This was going to be a long year.

"We do have clocks here you know." Kialla said nodding to the ornamental clock currently ticking silently away, though it wasn't clear exactly what it was reading as there were no number on it for it to be a time clock.

"I know, well I know now, but I meant mine specifically. It was also a radio and played my favourite songs to wake me up in the morning." Rory said, sighing slightly into her knees.

Tilly had now moved to sit closer by the fire. It was Autumn and so the nights and morning were only going to get colder. Rory was mostly used to it, but this was decidedly further north than she was used to being. She'd never really ever been out of her little town, well, it wasn't so little given she lived smack in the middle of London. But it seemed small now that she knew what she knew.

"You girls are up early." They looked up to see one of the boys stepping into the common room, smiling at them. Rory recognised him as one of the prefects from last night. Though the badge pinned on his chest would have told her that anyway.

"We didn't know what time it was." Shiv said, pointing to the clock over the fireplace.

"Ah," he said, now moving fully into he room. "Yes, I'm afraid this clock isn't so much for telling time. It counts down until Graduation. It's been enchanted so that it appears different to all the years who see it." He pointed at each of the seven coloured triangles in the pie shape. "These all represent a year. So, first year is yellow, second is blue, third is red and so on." He dragged his finger along the small hand. "This points to the year and the big hand points to the different patches in the rim." Rory watched in amazement as she suddenly saw the clock shifting in front of her. "It counts down the major events, like Christmas, Valentine's day, the Celestial Ball and Helga's birthday."

Rory could see the others were just as fascinated by this information as she was. "Who designed it," she asked, "and why?" Considering its nature, she couldn't imagine it had been a student.

The Prefect grinned. "No-one really knows for sure, but it has been here practically since the school was founded." He moved away from the clock to stand in the middle of the room. "I bet it was Helga herself. She loved to celebrate anytime she could. When she was still alive and teaching here, she took over the kitchen. It was her idea to bring in the house elves you know. She never believed in that sort of thing. They were always well treated here."

Rory wanted to ask, but as she opened her mouth to do so, more people started to stream into the common room. She still wasn't sure what time it was, but it was clear that it was getting closer to breakfast.

"Alright, Professor Sprout will be in soon to have a little talk with us. Nothing to worry about." Another Prefect said, trying to calm the sudden appearance of the still sleepy students. "You first years are going to meet our head of house and get to know the names of all the important people you need to know, so please pay attention whilst she is talking, or you may not realise what you don't know." She said, just in time for the woman in question to sneak in.

She was hard to miss, Rory thought, noticing how she seemed to demand attention wherever she walked. Though she couldn't tell if that was intentional or not.

"Good morning students! I trust you've all slept well?"

Rory noticed Lila discreetly signing to Tilly and she figured they must have been talking to each other because it didn't look like they were paying attention.

"Alright, so I just have a few small things to go over and then you're free to go to breakfast." The room was excited by the thought and Rory shook her head. "First thing, Lila, could you and Tilly please come here?"

Lila quickly stopped signing and nodded to Tilly. She seemed to understand because they quickly made their way through the small crowd to the Professor's side. "I want you all to pay attention. This is Tilly Abourno, she is deaf."

There was a soft gasp through the room. Rory had never met a deaf person before Tilly so she imagined it was the same for most of the people here too. "Now, Lila, Tilly's cousin has graciously offered to teach sign classes to anyone who wants to learn. I strongly encourage all of you to take the time to learn some basic signs." Lila translated every word to Tilly who smiled back. "Prefects, you've already began to learn so when able, please check everyone's progress. I anticipate a good turn out."

Tilly's face brightened up even more, were that possible. Rory was glad that, so far, her housemates were all very lovely. She didn't know what the other houses were like, but she was glad that she had ended up in the best one. She wasn't surprised though. She'd heard so much about this Helga Hufflepuff. She would have been very disappointed if any of it turned out not to be true.

"Following that," Professor Sprout waved her hand at one of the blank walls that suddenly filled with names and dates. "We like to celebrate birthdays here. Please put your name next to a date and the birthday organisers will come and see you closer to your date. We have one party at the end of every month to celebrate the birthdays passed." She told them excitedly. "We can't, unfortunately, have them every day, we would never get any work done."

Rory laughed at that and looked over at Shiv, who didn't seem to mind the thought of never getting work done.

"Now I want to introduce you to your Prefects. From the fifth years, we have Tabitha Hickory and Griffin Magnus." The boy from earlier gave a small wave and Tabitha, a curly haired goth type, winked at everyone. "Sixth years are Daphne Morrow and Theseus Macmillan." Rory was stuck behind a group of taller boys, so she couldn't see the, but she could hear Daphne as she seemed to shriek in delight.

"I'm the one who told you all it was lights out, don't forget." Rory would never forget.

"Lastly we have Adrestia Hathaway and Rex Abbott. They're both seventh years." She pointed to two older students standing near the back, clearly in their own world. "Now, Prefects have a lot of power, they can both take and remove points for behaviour that they see. They cannot give you detention, but I do allow them to recommend punishment if they deem it necessary to bring anyone to me. So, think carefully before you try anything."

Rory nodded along with everyone else. She would be interested to see how it all goes the rest of the year. "The last thing I want to mention is the Mentoring Groups." The Professor said, waving her wand on the clear space along the back wall where several parchments now hung. "You've all been placed in one, if you don't see your name, please let me know. Seventh years lead these groups and it is a way for you to make friends and get to know each other, these people should hopefully be approachable and able to help you with any problems that you have."

She left the room as quickly as she came, and Rory blinked at her in surprise and shock as she tentatively made her way over to the list of names. She found it almost immediately along with Maryse and Tilly. The others were names she didn't know and could only assume they were older than her, Pandora Morgan, Millie Rogers, Warrick Williams and Chase Hunter – with a name like that she was getting a very specific view of who he might have been. She pictured a safari outfit and was getting a bit of an Indiana Jones vibe, a film she'd thought very good, though her mother did not know she'd seen it, or even King Solomon's Mines.

The rest of the morning went by mostly uninterrupted. Rory helped Tilly and Lila work out a bit of a schedule for their signing lessons. They were mostly happening on a weekend and after dinner. It was really the only time anyone had. Especially the fifth and seventh years who had exams to worry about. No-one had mentioned exams before and Rory felt silly for momentarily thinking she'd gotten out of them. Her bubble had been well and truly burst.

She didn't see Bill until just after lunch when she was exploring a bit of the castle. She was walking along the second-floor corridor after she'd gotten herself a bit lost on her way to the bathroom. Those moving staircases were becoming a nuisance she had no idea how to deal with.

"That's not nice!"

Rory paused at the voice, peering around the corner to see the unmistakable red head engaged in what looked to be a shouting match with a pot plant. Concerned for her friend's mental health, and perhaps slightly amused, Rory tucked her arms behind her innocently and walked up to him. "Hey, Bill."

"Oh. McKinnon, Hi!" Bill turned to her looking slightly red faced and annoyed about something.

"What's going on?"

"Peeves has been following me up and down this corridor for half an hour throwing dirt at me."

Rory snorted for a moment before clearing her throat. "Who's Peeves?"

Bill pointed to the pot plant that now appeared to be floating in midair.

"Peeves is a floating pot plant?" She asked, brows furrowed in skepticism.

"Yes!" Bill glared at the pot plant. "Well, not actually, but he's currently hiding behind the pot plant." He turned to glare at it again as dirt went soaring through the air towards Rory. "Watch it!"

Rory's eyes widened in shock as Bill pulled her behind him, so she wouldn't get covered in dirt. "Oh, God!"

"We were warned about him last night. He tried to trip us over by popping the stairs. One of our Prefects, William, nearly lost his foot when Peeves crushed it. I think he's still in the hospital wing."

Rory watched him talk in abject horror. It sounded horrifying. What was this thing?

"HA! NEARLY GOT YOU, GIRLIE! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE PEEVESY!"

The voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Suddenly a see through little body appeared in front of the pot plant.

"IF YOU'RE AFRAID OF A LITTLE DIRT, BETTER WATCH THE POT!"

Impossibly fast, Peeves shot the pot plant straight at the pair as they watched, too slow to get out of the way.

"REDUCTO."

The inevitable smashing of a pot on the was suddenly evaporated by the appearance of a young, sleek haired man with a hooked nose. "Beat it, Peeves." His voice was low, he didn't yell, but there was definitely a threat in there somewhere.

"OH LOOK, ITS SNIVELLY, SNIVEROUS SNAPE! WATCH YOUR BACKS, WATCH YOUR BACKS! SNIVEROUS WILL ATTACK!"

The man, Snape, raised his wand to the entity. "Bloody Baron."

Rory wasn't sure why, but those two words sent the being reeling, making a mess as he went. Snape now turned to the cowering duo. "I suggest remaining in this corridor is not in your best interest."

Rory blinked up at Bill who nodded. "Uh, thank you, Professor Snape."

There was no acknowledgement from the man, he simply turned sharply on his heel and marched back the way he came.

"That was…"

"Weird, yeah."

"Did he come here just to help you?" Rory wondered aloud. He had left as soon as he'd finished, so she had to wonder what business he might have had that took him up there.

Bill shrugged. "I somehow feel like that is a question we'll never have the answer to."

"I heard he's out Potions Professor. Isn't he a little young?"

Bill blinked at Rory. "What do you mean?"

"Well, my mum had to study for like five years before she was qualified to teach. She was nearly thirty before she got a permanent teaching job. He can't be much older than some of the students."

Bill shrugged. "I don't really know how it works in the muggle world, but here, you can get a job when you turn seventeen. Well, a proper one. Some students work part time or casually throughout different years."

Rory didn't understand this system. Was higher education really only something muggles had? She'd always thought she would go to university like her mother. Was this why her father didn't have a degree? "That seems silly."

Bill shrugged again. "I don't know. My Dad works in the Ministry, he doesn't have a… what was it?"

"A degree."

"Right."

None of this made any sense to Rory. She couldn't really imagine her education stopping at seventeen. "What are exams for then, if not to go to university?"

"Well, there are some jobs that require further training… even after Hogwarts, like Aurors or Healers. So, you need to be successful in your exams, so they can see your dedication and know how powerful and good at spells that you are."

The advocation was thrilling and Rory really couldn't wait to find out more. She had no idea what an Auror was, but she had a feeling a Healer was something akin to a Doctor. She wanted to know what other kinds of jobs wizards could have. She imagined it would be the same as muggles, even if they were called something different and had different sorts of responsibilities, just with magic.

"Professor Snape said we should leave." Bill reminded her, looking around anxiously as though he expected an attack. Considering what they had just witnessed, she was sure it was an entirely accurate and appropriate reaction.

"Good point." She said, forgetting the reason she'd been in the corridor entirely. "What is Peeves?" She asked him as they headed back towards the stairs.

"He's a poltergeist. Devil's really. I knew they were annoying, but I didn't expect them to be quite so… terrible."

"Dangerous you mean, why on Earth would they allow something like that to just hang around?!"

Bill sighed. "Poltergeists, from what I've heard, are a bit like ghosts, though they're classified as a non-being because they were never actually alive." Rory could tell bu the way his voice got all sagely that he was about to school her on something. "But where you can move ghosts along, Poltergeists are creatures of chaos and notorious for causing chaos and destruction wherever they go. Peeves, is the most notorious of all."

Rory took a moment to process what he was saying. "What, so they just appear out of nowhere?"

Bill nodded as they turned a corner. "Essentially, yes. They are brought into existence by large amounts of chaotic magic in one place, though no-one really knows for sure."

The more Rory was learning about all of this, the more she was beginning to wonder if this place was really for her.

"It's indestructible and amortal because it's not really a being. It was never alive. They're impossible to control and ever harder to remove." This all sounded rather complicated to Rory and she wondered if Bill in particular and the wizarding world in general all just knew these things inherently. So far, she'd not asked a question that her friend couldn't answer. It was becoming a little embarrassing.

"It doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant thing."

Bill shook his head, stepping carefully down the stairs in what, Rory assumed, was an attempt to keep an eye out for Peeves, in case he tried to do the same thing he'd done last night. Not wanting to get caught unawares, Rory followed his steps. "No. I'd never seen one until last night. We have a ghoul in our attic, but nothing like that."

Rory didn't know what a ghoul was either. It was becoming very clear how much further behind her classmates she was, and she had to hope that the gap didn't grow much further or she was sure she would never be able to catch up. A disadvantage she was sure was unique to herself and the others like her, though she wasn't sure how many people grew up in the muggle world. Most, if not all, of the people she had met so far had magical knowledge and so she had to assume they were from magical families, not that she'd actually asked any of them. "You know a lot about this stuff."

They reached the landing and Bill scoffed. "Only what I grew up hearing about. Mum is never satisfied until she's blamed something for something happening. My little twin brothers Fred and George – you remember, the ones in the matching jumpers? – they like to blame all sorts of things on the Ghoul in the attic. I'm pretty sure mum just expects it now."

She laughed a little at that. She did indeed remember his twin brothers. They were hard to forget, though she'd only seen them for a brief time. "They sound like both a lot of fun and a lot of trouble."

"You're not wrong. They've turned mum prematurely grey with their games, keep telling her she's got them mixed up. I can never tell them apart."

Rory thought about her own siblings, the realization that her little brother would be sorted next year making her eyes widen in shock. "Oh, I didn't even realise! My little brother Logan will be sorted next year, that's both terrifying and exciting."

"That's cool! Why is that terrifying?" Rory could tell that he was confused by her reaction.

"Well, it's all so new to him, isn't it. Me too, obviously, but I'll be the leading example. I'll be the one to tell them, prepare them with what to expect. It's so much pressure!"

Bill shook his head, directing them to a destination that Rory wasn't sure on. "It won't be that bad, you'll see. Once you start, it's really hard to stop. I'll have to talk to my siblings too, even though I grew up surrounded by this, Hogwarts is just as exciting to me as it is to you. First off, I get to do magic!"

Rory laughed at him.

"Secondly, this place is huge. Probably the hugest place I've ever seen." He admitted, cheeks pinking slightly. "You've probably guessed that my family doesn't have a lot of money…" Rory wanted to say something, but Bill kept talking. "Whilst I'm here, my Mum and Dad don't have to worry about me and can focus on the other kids."

Rory sobered immediately and nodded once. "Yeah, uh, I thought it was weird when you were so serious about the drink on the train."

Silence descended between them, like a curtain neither of them wanted to step through. It was a little stifling to be honest and Rory found it rather suffocating. "Uhm." She wasn't sure what to say.

"Do you want to have lunch?" Bill asked suddenly, making Rory jump in surprise.

"Oh, I ate already, but if you're hungry we can go back in, since you were probably stuck up there with Peeves, huh?" Bill nodded, and Rory followed him down the stairs towards the Great Hall. "I think lunch is still on... I got there pretty early, most of my house was empty and I didn't want to sit there by myself." Shiv was a very strange girl, in Rory's opinion, and there wasn't anything she seemed to love more than chaos. She was sure that learning of this poltergeist… thing, was going to fill her with absolute joy.

"I was originally heading to lunch myself, but I was coming down from the tower – that's where we're staying – and the stairs got all muddled. I couldn't figure out where I was and then Peeves showed up and started making a mess of everything." He shook his head and sighed. "It wasn't fun, I kept trying to leave but he blocked me."

Rory frowned in sympathy. It sounded like magic came with a lot of dangers and obstacles. She did hope that he wouldn't be too much of a menace, but judging solely from the experience she'd just had, she couldn't imagine the school year being without its issues and complications. She wondered just how many of those issues were going to have something to do with the poltergeist. "I'm sorry that happened. Perhaps this is the best place to mention moving through the castle in groups."

Bill nodded, crossing his arms in thought. "You know, I didn't give it much thought before."

Rory looked over at him curiously as they got closer to the Great Hall entrance. "Give what much thought?"

Bill looked at her from the corner of his eye. "What this must be like for you. Growing up with magic, I guess I was always kind of distantly aware of the dangers it held, but you have no idea, not really. I accepted it a long time ago, but you…" he shook his head. "You're not even aware of the things you're not aware of. I just…" Now he sighed and stopped walking, looking at Rory resolutely. "I never realised this would be hard for you and I really only see it now because you keep asking questions that, to most people, should be obvious. I was a bit annoyed, I want to apologise for that."

Rory smiled. Her face had dropped as he'd talked, but now she was glad he was seeing it from her perspective. She felt stupid every time she opened her mouth to ask another question and she knew she was really relying on the kindness of strangers essentially to make sure she was safe. She knew nothing of magic beyond what she'd managed to read and wrangle out of her father and she'd promised her mother she would be careful here, but it was hard to do that when there were things like Poltergeists and enchantments and all other manner of things she didn't even know about. Though she tried to appear confident and unafraid, really, she was terrified of being hit with a stray spell or apparently death by flying pot plant. At first, she'd thought she was being rather irrational, but it was becoming obvious that the more ridiculous it seemed, the more realistic it actually was. "Bill," she started, trying to find the best words. She wasn't great with words, she never had been. She was always more a girl of action. Nodding resolutely to herself, she stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around the taller boy in a tight squeeze of a hug.

Clearly not someone starved of affection, Bill immediately returned the hug with equal fervor. "If you ever have any questions you're wanting to ask, you can definitely come and ask me. I won't judge you. This is my solemn promise. No question is too silly."

Rory appreciated the sentiment and she tucked her chin into his shoulder, so she wasn't hurting him as she nodded. "Thank you, Bill. Honestly."

It almost became a competition between them about who could squeeze the hardest, though it was fairly clear that Bill, who was taller and bigger, was winning. They soon separated, and Bill patted her on the shoulder. "Shall we?" He asked, nudging her to the double doors, though they were currently open to allow the steady flow of students in and out.

"Absolutely."

The, now relaxed, pair of friends made their way into the hall and looked around. Bill immediately waved towards someone and Rory looked over to see Pez who was standing on the seating at the Slytherin table and waving at them. She looked closer at the Slytherin table to notice that Pez was seated a couple of seats away from the main group who appeared to be resolutely ignoring her. It was hard to see from where she was standing but it seemed like no one was best pleased with the arrangement. "Guys!"

Bill and Rory headed in her direction and she made a mad dash away from the tables to get to them. "I was just sitting down to lunch; did you want to join me?" She asked, looking over her shoulder at the sneers from her peers. There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked a little jittery, like she'd stayed up most of the night. Rory was having all kinds of negative feelings about that and she immediately nodded at her request.

"Absolutely. Why don't you join us at the Gryffindor table, they're probably the least likely to protest?" Knowing what she knew about her own house and the incident last night, Rory had to agree. It seemed that amongst the houses, Gryffindor had a reputation for being loud and obnoxious, which, looking over at them, wasn't one they seemed inclined to dissuade. As they walked over, the table only got louder and louder and the conversations were more and more passionate. Everything from the first time someone had kissed a girl to adventures into the Forbidden Forest were being discussed. Bill, in his boyish wisdom, seemed to notice that Rory wasn't particularly comfortable with the discussions and made sure to seat them a good two or three metres away from the large group of boys.

"Thanks," Pez sighed, sitting opposite Bill who had walked around the other side of the table to add more space and make it easier to talk.

"No problem, you look tired."

She nodded, leaning over and laying her head carefully on the table. She sounded tired too and Rory thought her earlier assessment of Pez's lack of sleep might have been more accurate than she would have liked. "I am. I didn't get much sleep. I'm rooming with McNair and her pack of goons, they're like a crazy squad or something. Hyping her up every chance they get. Only one other girl in there, Rosier, seems unaffected by her apparent charm. I think she's my only ally, though she seemed to be sleeping pretty soundly last night." She slumped further into her seat. "Flint doesn't seem too bad, though she is a bit dim. Kept asking what time the elves were coming to tuck her in. Can't imagine she had a great upbringing." Pez finished her short rant and rested her head back on the table again. Rory felt strongly for her friend. Though she'd only met her yesterday, she already felt a kinship with her, much as she had with Bill that day in Diagon Alley, what felt like half a year ago.

"It sounds like you've had quite a night… and day." Bill said, quickly making short work of filling his plate with food. A mix of chicken, potato and mixed vegetables. The balanced diet made Rory's mothering insides soar.

"Yeah, I was worried she'd try something," she said, looking discreetly over her shoulder. "But she fell asleep almost instantly, or at least I feel like she probably did, I was too worried about staying awake to really notice."

Rory frowned. "Well, you can't stay awake all night, you need to sleep. Shouldn't you tell your… uhm, Head of House, can't they help?" She didn't know who that was, but they must be like her head of house, surely.

Pez frowned now, leaning her head on her hands. "Can't I think he likes her group. Had almost nothing but praise for them last night. Help them up as unalienable examples of what the house should be. Pretty sure he thought I was scum of the Earth."

Rory didn't like the sound of that. "What a horrible attitude to have. As an educator he should care about the wellbeing of all his students, whether he likes them or not. Who is this teacher, I might need to write a strongly worded letter to the school board, or better yet, have a chat to the Headmaster, I'm sure I can talk to Professor Sprout about it, she seems the helpful sort."

Through her rant, she'd not noticed the strong concern for her wellbeing in the eyes of her table mates. She only thought about how the system worked back in the muggle world and tried to apply that to the new magical world she was a part of, regardless of how different the two worlds were, she assumed there was some overlap.

"That's… not really how this works… Rory." Pez told her, turning to look her in the eye. "You don't have any authority, no one will listen to what you have to say, though I do appreciate it."

"Then I'll get my mum to send a letter."

Bill shook his head. "They won't listen to her either. A, because she's a muggle," he said around a mouth of potato. "And B because she's not Pez's parent or guardian. What another parent or guardian says about someone else's child has nothing to do with them."

The attitude this world seemed to have against her mother was more than a little infuriating and if it wasn't for the fact that she knew Bill didn't mean any offense, she might have gone off at him too. They all seemed so okay with the way things were, she wasn't sure they would be so okay with everything if it was their own families being slighted. "You guys, this is ridiculous, do you have any idea how you sound?" She asked, sighing. "You're both just telling me it's okay for a child," she gestured to Pez for affect, "to be picked on and not sleep because they're worried about their safety and no one is going to do anything about it?" This was ridiculous. She didn't know if she wanted to be a part of this. "You two have lunch, I have some things to think about." She said, getting up from her seat with a little more force than she intended and had to grab the table for balance. She rolled her shoulders and marched out of the Great Hall. The only thing she wanted right now was her mother and since she couldn't have her, the Owlery was her destination.


	6. Chapter 6 Dear Mum

**Chapter Six: Dear Mum**

**a/n: Thank you so much for the nice reviews! Please keep PMing me, I love hearing from you! Please excuse the grammar in anything written by the characters themselves as they are children, I am trying for a little authenticity.**

* * *

Rory's letter to her mother wasn't finished yet. She was annoyed at how easily this world seemed to be able to suck her in. It was a Thursday now, she wondered what her friends were doing at school, what her sister was doing, her brother or her parents. She was sure her mother was probably back at work now, it seemed like such a long time since she'd seen her face, though she knew it was only yesterday. It had only been twenty-four hours and already she was tired of this place. As nice as the people seemed to be and as beautiful as the castle was, there were just things that she couldn't understand. How much of this was going to help her and how much of it was she going to have to overcome. Was she going to succeed despite magic, or because of it, because there was an incredibly fine line between both.

_You'll notice that my letter is kind of all over the place Mum, sorry. I've been writing it in parts since I got here. It's already been 24 hours and honestly, I'm so tired. Everything here is so different. I wanted to try and give it a go and I'm trying Mum, I really am, but how do you try when all you seem to have to look forward to is more questions. I feel like every time I answer another question all I have to show for it is yet another question and it's not even been a whole day here yet!_

Rory sighed. She was leaning against the wall just inside the owlery, she imagined it was usually a lot dirtier in here, but it appeared to have been recently cleaned because there were no signs of owl poop, which meant she wasn't uncomfortable, either by the smell or the fact that she was sitting on the ground. Probably most people wrote their letters in their dorm or some other place they could properly sit, but she wanted to be away from everyone and she was hoping that she wouldn't be disturbed up here, since it was still only the second day, most of the students were probably either used to this or weren't massive babies like she was suddenly turning into.

_Hogwarts is beautiful Mum, I wish I could take photos and show you, but I don't know if a muggle camera would work here and I wouldn't have a clue how to work a magical one… if that's even such a thing, can you ask Dad about that please because I really want to know. I know they have photos of things, I saw them in Dad's books, and they're in my books and I know they exist, but they might be different, or perhaps everything is hand painted. Did you know the portraits here can move? It's really weird. On my way to the owlery I got stopped by a nasty old man who was mean. I'm not sure why he was allowed to talk like that to people, or perhaps it's just that I'm from muggle heritage. __Mum, some of the people here are HORRIBLE_

Rory scratched it out. She didn't want her mother thinking that she was getting hurt by people, she was a bit of a worrier. She hadn't realised how hard this was going to be. Did she want to leave? She wasn't sure. She definitely needed more time to think about that since she hadn't had time since she'd left Pez and Bill in the Great Hall. They were certainly nice, though their attitude towards Muggles seemed a little off to her, she was sure they hadn't actually meant to offend her, not after what Bill had said. As much as she liked Pez though, she didn't know her, she didn't really know Bill that well either, but it was a little different with him, he'd met her mother and been perfectly nice about it, like his family. She knew nothing about anyone in Pez's family though and she _was_ just made a Slytherin, which everyone kept telling her meant she was destined for only bad things.

_I don't really know what to do Mum, I love it here, I know that, but there's just something underneath it all that I don't like, and I don't know what to do about it. I wish you were here with me, I would be able to handle a lot more. I want to do this for Dad, this is his world and I want him to know that I'm willing to embrace that, but how do I show that when everywhere I turn there's something else I don't understand. It just doesn't make this any easier._

Rory sighed and folded up her letter. She wasn't ready to send it yet because it sounded so defeatist and she didn't want her mother to see that side of things. Honestly, she wasn't sure what she wanted her mother to see, since really, she couldn't say what she would read into it. It wasn't specifically like she was having a horrible time, only that she felt like she wasn't accepted to the extent she thought she deserved, not to mention the off-handed remarks people kept making about her mother and blood status, which made no sense to her. Blood was blood, and everyone had blood, so she was mostly confused by the attitude towards it. No-one seemed to be able to or want to explain it to her beyond the ingrained prejudice being something she would have to get used to. A sentiment she strongly disagreed with.

_I love you Mum. I miss you. I'm sorry this has taken so long. I promise to write again when I have more interesting things to say. Classes start soon, I'll tell you how they are, though I expect poor results at first, given I know next to nothing about any of this._

_Write me back xx_

Finishing her letter, Rory folded it carefully into an envelope and heaved herself back up. She wasn't exactly sure how this worked, but her father had told her that Nibbles would know where to go. She could only assume it was some magic thing. She approached Nibbles, who was obvious from the black patch at the crown of his head and flicked her fingers along his wing. He was small compared to other barn owls, but she liked him anyway, it was why she'd picked him, he just looked so friendly.

Nibbles happily allowed the petting to continue, but Rory smiled at him and shook her head, holding the letter out to him, which she'd written her address on in her messy looped handwriting. She'd been practicing getting neater, but the quill and ink had devolved her writing into a barely readable mess, which she hoped her mother would be able to decipher. "Take this to, Mum, okay? I'll write a letter to Dad soon."

Nibbles, true to his name, nibbled her finger before taking off into the air. She didn't know how fast owl mail was, so she didn't know when her mother would get the letter, but she was happy to wait, she didn't need to know when her mother got it, only that she would.

"Sending a letter home?"

Rory jumped at the sudden voice. She hadn't heard anyone enter and looked over to the door to see a blonde with a smirk on her face. It looked like she had been standing there for a little longer than was probably necessary. "Uh, yeah. Just to my mum."

The girl nodded, her smirk still firmly in place. "That's good, me too." She said, stepping around Rory to head to a speckled brown owl that appeared to be sleeping. "I was going to wait, but I think Nester, my owl, might be wanting some exercise so I thought it was a good idea, you know? They say they need exercise daily and I'm sure he'll start feeling cooped up in here, he used to have such freedom," she said sighing, "you know?"

Rory blinked at her incredulously. "Uh, I'm probably not the best person to ask, actually… I'm not familiar…"

She looked confused for a second before she suddenly gasped in understanding. "Oh! Okay so you're raised muggle, are you?"

"Is that a problem?" Rory asked, frowning.

The girl raised her hands in defense. "Whoa, hey, no I was just asking."

Rory shook her head, "sorry, I've been feeling a little attacked today."

"That's alright, it can be hard, I understand. My grandparents were very anti-magic, it was like a weird movement thing in the early twenties or something. So, they did everything the muggle way and didn't even tell my Dad he was magical until he was like fourteen. There was a community in Dumfries and Galloway for years, but it's closed down now."

Rory wasn't sure what to say, mostly because the information had been given to her very fast and in a very hard Scottish accent. It was quite clear to her that this girl, whoever she was, had not spent much time outside of Scotland. She smiled slightly. "I think I got all that. What happened to your Dad when he found out?"

"Oh, not much, he was mostly okay. They eventually got tutors in to teach him since they'd never really learnt magic themselves."

"You can do that?"

She shrugged. "I didn't say what they did was legal, but who am I to judge really."

Rory was very confused. "What was your name, sorry?"

"Oh, pardon me, yes. I'm Isla, nice to meet you." She held out her hand, which Rory now noticed was covered in what looked like marker pen. She'd drawn little pictures all over her arm.

Rory stared at her arm for a little too long before quickly shaking her hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Rory, Aurora, but you can call me Rory."

"Hi, Rory-call-me-Aurora."

Rory snorted slightly. "No, not like that."

Isla winked at her and proceeded past the owl she had been looking at and looked at the ones wearing a crest that looked similar to the ones in Rory's school letters. "I think I might just let Nestor sleep, actually; do you suppose these are free?"

Rory walked over to her. "They have the school crest on them, so that might mean they belong to the school?" She looked at the letter Isla was holding to note that the address was written in giant letters, though they were neat and clearly legible.

"Truth." Isla quickly gestured to one of the owls and handed the letter to it.. "Quick as you can, need to let my mother know I'm not dead." The owl seemed to squeak in response and took off with a little jump. "Don't worry about getting a returned message either!" She yelled after it. "Hope he heard me."

"You can ask owls to wait?"

Isla nodded. "Of course, how are they supposed to know you're getting a reply? It's like if you send someone a message to meet you for tea, how are they supposed to say yes or no if they don't send the message back, maybe they don't have an owl of their own? They'd have to go all the way to the post office and what if you wanted tea in an hour?"

Rory shook her head in confusion. It was quickly becoming her natural state of being. All this information was so confusing, and she wasn't sure she was ever going to understand any of this. "What house are you?"

"Ravenclaw, we're super smart."

"But you don't know anything about Owls?"

"I said super smart, not all knowing."

Rory laughed lightly. "Didn't I hear the hat say you liked books?"

"And I do," said Isla, "but that's not all Ravenclaw is about."

Rory didn't think that Isla looked like the bookish type, she had a cool sort of style and an attitude that made her seem like she didn't care, not something she thought was similar to Kirley at all. "Mm," Rory started, non-committal, she was too busy thinking about the fact that she didn't know enough about anything to really be making assumptions.

"For example," Isla lifted up the sleeve of her robe to reveal multiple outlines all across and up her arm. Rory hummed in surprise, turning her arm this way and that to get a better look at the images.

"Those are amazing!"

Isla smiled, "thanks, drew them myself. My brother and I want to get a tattoo when we're old enough, a matching one. I've been going through the designs."

"Why don't you do them on paper?"

Isla shrugged. "I need to know how the colouring would look with my skin. As you can see, I haven't coloured these ones in yet."

Rory shook her head. "That's so cool. I wish I could draw like that."

Isla shook her sleeve back down and smiled. "Don't be silly, of course you can. Everyone can draw, we just don't all draw in the same way."

Rory wanted to tell her that, no, she really couldn't draw, but the look of conviction was so strong on her face that Rory just wasn't sure she could kill her buzz like that. "Uhm, sure, alright." She wasn't sure what she could say to further the conversation though, since she wasn't sure why it had suddenly turned into an attest to her own abilities.

Isla smiled, though she hadn't really not been smiling before. Rory supposed it could be described as the smile deepening. "Come, let me show you."

Before Rory could protest, Isla had grabbed her arm and started to drag her out of the owlery. Rory didn't necessarily protest as much as she could though. Despite being alone in the owlery, she didn't want to be by herself. She was still feeling upset about what had happened earlier and though she didn't want to be with them right now, she wouldn't say no to the company of someone else. "Where are we going?" She finally asked as they got to the bottom of the stairs and started heading for a hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"Just wait, you'll love it."

Rory doubted it. She was allergic to cabbages and there seemed to be a lot of cabbages and pumpkins in that garden. "I'm allergic to cabbages." She said dumbly, as if that was enough of a point for them to stop walking.

Isla shrugged. "They're not close so you don't even have to touch them."

Rory knew that, and she wasn't allergic to them in that way, only if she ate them. "Right."

They continued to head towards the hut, which only seemed to get bigger and bigger as they got closer. But not bigger as in it was coming more to a natural size, it just seemed to be big in every sense of the word. The door was massive, and the windows were just as big. Even the pumpkins in the garden seemed to be too big to be grown naturally. It all just seemed to be a little bit too big.

"You'll love this!" Isla assured her, excitedly taking the steps up to the door one at a time, considering she would have really struggled to take them more than one at a time, this was no simple process. "Hagrid has all kinds of cool things and he lets me draw for him."

They'd only been here a day and Isla was already talking about someone as though she'd known them for ages. It spoke a lot to her personality that she was being so excited about it. Rory blinked in confusion as Isla banged loudly on the door, which she didn't think would be able to bear a small knock, no one would hear it given how solid the door looked. She was doubly confused then when the door seemed to fold into the shadows and opened to reveal a hulking giant of a man, in the form of Hagrid. Jolted with realization that this was the same man who'd walked them to the sorting ceremony only last night, Rory brought her hand up to slap against her forehead. "Oh, I'm dumb!"

The giant – Hagrid – shook his head in good natured disagreement. "Don't be sayin' tha' 'bout yerself, Lass. Yeh lookin' pretty smart t'me."

Rory hadn't realised she'd been overhead and turned to see Isla grinning at her. "Hagrid, this is my new best friend, Rory, she's a Hufflepuff."

Hagrid moved out of his large doorway to grant them entry as he seemed to bow slightly to Rory. "Nice ta meet yeh. Any friend o' Isla's a friend o' mine."

Rory was awed at the size of the furniture in the house, though he was a giant and she supposed he wouldn't fit in any normal sized furniture. "What are those?" She asked, suddenly spying the jar of black mass in the corner of the room. Immediately noticing where she was pointing, Hagrid looked shocked before draping a length of cloth over it.

"Nothin' t' fuss on. Now, what brings yeh t' me 'ouse?"

Isla stepped forward this time, taking a seat in one of the too-big arm chairs to the side of the door. "I was trying to show Rory something, she says she can't draw and I wanted to show her what I taught you!"

Hagrid seemed to straighten up a little at this, the words almost giving him a sense of pride as he lit up immensely and pulled a small drawing pad, which seemed tiny in his hands, from a space in the wall behind him. "Ah, yeh've come ta see if what she's sayin' is truth, eh?"

Rory could not believe that Hagrid and Isla seemed to have such a friendly relationship after only twenty four hours. "Okay, sorry, wait," Rory said, shaking her head. Everything was moving so fast for her, it seemed like she was moving from area to area with no understanding of what was actually happening around her, and it was causing her some distress. "Sorry, how do you know each other?"

Isla laughed lightly. "My mum owns a shop in Diagon Alley, and she used to bring me and my brother with her sometimes. Hagrid is a regular."

Hagrid was nodding along with Isla's words and Rory sighed, rubbing her fingers along her temples to try and relieve the pressure she could feel building in her skull. She was positive she was coming down with a migraine or something, because this was ridiculous. Her brain was simply not equipped to hold onto all of this information in one hit. It was too much. "Sorry…" She started, tears breaking through as she found her mind spinning through everything that had happened so far. "Sorry, I've had an interesting day."

The sounds in the room were almost deafening as Rory waited for either of them to say something, anything, that would make her feel better, or worse, anything that wasn't the numbed confusion of her current state. Several minutes passed before Hagrid shuffled around the room and pulled a rather large stool out of the corner of the room to sit in front of Rory. He gestured for her to sit and she did, mostly on autopilot as she tried to sort through the mass of emotions that were speeding through her brain at the minute, trying to focus on what she was actually feeling, but losing it just as quickly as it popped up and fighting to find it again.

Rory was exhausted.

"What's going on, Hagrid's a real good listener if you need to vent, but I get it if you want to keep it to yourself." Rory heard from beside her, turning to see Isla looking at her with a polite smile.

"Yeah, I'll be okay, I would rather not talk about it, if that's okay with you… I'm still sort of figuring it out for myself." It wasn't that Rory didn't want to talk about it, but she didn't know Isla and she sure didn't now Hagrid, she'd only met him two seconds ago. She didn't really know what either of their views on things were and, really, how was she meant to fit in here if she was constantly talking about how much she didn't fit in? It certainly wasn't going to help her situation any.

Hagrid watched her for a second but shook his head and moved to the other side of the room, that seemed like it was something of a kitchen. "Would yer like some rock cakes then?" He asked Rory, looking over his shoulder and appearing very much like a concerned mumma bear.

Rory wasn't entirely sure what a rock cake was, but it sounded like a cake, like something her mother would make and so she nodded as she curled herself up on the oversized chair a little. "That sounds really good actually, thank you."

Isla didn't say anything, but something in her posture change made Rory pause. She didn't seem like she was going to say anything though and before Rory could ask her about it, Hagrid was handing her a small (by his standards but large by hers) plate with two cake like shapes on it. Cake-like because there was just something about then that Rory had to admit made her doubt their cakeness. "Have a go wih tha' one, ey?"

Rory, a little horrified admittedly, looked down at the cakes on the plate and then over at Isla who was clearly trying to maintain an air of neutrality, but failing. "You said this was a cake?" Rory asked, looking at Hagrid who seemed to be quite pleased with himself.

"Aye, the recipe's me Dad's but ey've spiced it up a bit." He told Rory proudly, puffing his chest out as he took a seat on his giant chair, clearly favoured if the shape and appearance of it was any indication, though, Rory had to admit, nothing in this place seemed to be new.

"Th-thanks," Rory said hesitantly, looking at the rock cake that looked more like rock than cake. She was a little concerned about how it would taste but didn't want to be rude and so she quickly picked it up and tried to take a bite out of it. Big mistake. Rory could have sworn she heard her teeth crack under the force of trying to bite into her cake and a quick shift to look at Isla confirmed that she was absolutely laughing at her. "Mm," she quickly said, dropping the barely touched dessert onto her plate. "It's great."

Hagrid nodded at her. "Aye, you can come 'ere anytime you like, open door policy," he said, taking a bite out of his own cake, which seemed so much smaller in his hands.

Rory looked at Isla who was grinning and she found herself significantly less down than she had been before. "Yeah… okay, I might do that, thank you."

"We should probably get going, Hagrid." Isla suddenly stood up. "I didn't realise how late it was."

Hagrid nodded. "Oh, aye, o'course, come back whenever you like, yer both welcome 'ere."

Rory sat her plate to the side and smiled genuinely. "Thanks, honestly I mean that. I felt so comfortable here and like people weren't judging me."

Hagrid and Isla exchanged glances but didn't comment. "No big deal, Rory, Hagrid's a great person to get to know, you'd be well looked after here."

"I really appreciate that, you have no idea how much." Rory stood up and sighed. "It was great to meet you both, but I should be getting back to my dorm."

"I'll come with you." Isla headed to the door as they said their goodbyes. Rory wasn't sure why, but she felt like she'd bonded with both of them somehow, even if she hadn't really spoken to either of them about anything. They both just seemed like they weren't very judgemental of anyone.

TYA

By the time the weekend had come around, Rory still hadn't spoken to Bill or Pez. In fact, she'd mostly gone out of her way to avoid them. As yet, she'd not received a letter returned from her mother, so she wasn't entirely sure if the letter had reached her yet, though she was about to set out to write one to her father, she felt she could be more honest in it, since she knew her father already knew more about all of this and that perhaps she could seek his counsel in some form. She certainly hoped that would be the case. Of course, he was very busy with his work, as she knew, but she hoped he'd be able to shed some light on the attitudes she'd so far encountered and whether or not it was something he could help her understand.

_Hi Dad, I know things are still really early and I told you I would give this a chance, and I am, promise, but… there just seems to be something going on here and I don't know if I like it. _

_I was talking to Bill Weasley, remember the boy from the shop? And the train station? Anyway, we got into an argument, another girl called Pez was there too, but you don't know here, but they were kind of rude about mum, i guess. Well, I don't know if rude is the right word, but they weren't being very nice and they were very dismissive. I don't get it Dad, why is Mum not having magical ability such a crazy thing? It doesn't seem right to me._

_I just don't really understand what this world is, I think, and even though I have met some really nice people, I can't help but to wonder if they really are all that they seem._

"What are you doing up in here?"

Rory started from where she had been staring at the letter to her Dad. She noticed Shiv was standing by the door, watching her curiously. "Sorry, I was writing a letter to my Dad."

Shiv pushed herself off the door and nodded at the letter in Rory's hands. "You do that alot, are you okay? You've been pretty quiet the last couple of days. You missed Lila and Tilly's sign language lessons…" She said, frowning slightly. "I thought you said you wanted to do them, Tilly was really disappointed when you weren't there."

"I'm sorry, I've just had a rough couple of days and I don't know how to deal with it."

"What's been going on?" Shiv asked, walking over to sit on the edge of Rory's bed. Despite herself, and even though she didn't actually know any of her dorm mates very well, Rory felt like she could at least speak to Shiv about this, mostly because they'd already talked about how they wanted to help each other. She folded up her paper and sighed.

"I made some friends, kind of, I don't know if I could really consider them friends since I didn't know one of them all that long and the other one I only met when I was in Diagon Alley," she started, sighing. "Anyway, my mum is a muggle, I'm a half blood, and they seemed to just sort of… judge her for it, I don't know."

Shiv nodded. "Ah, I see, okay," she placed her hand comfortingly on Rory's shoulder. "There's a bit of a culture of awkwardness when it comes to muggles in this world." She said, though it was quite clear that Rory didn't understand what she was talking about. "Look at it this way, right, most people who grow up in the magical world don't have a lot to do with muggles and when they do it's usually only bad things, like, just think about all the stereotypes you know of about other cultures, it's not always good, right?"

Rory sighed and shrugged. "But they were just so dismissive to my face and anyway, it's hardly acceptable, I shouldn't have to just sit down and take it, that's not fair and it's not fair on my mother, she raised me!"

Shiv leaned back and put her hands up in a placating gesture. "Woah, hey, I'm not saying you should have to take it, I just mean that maybe they didn't realise how they were coming off, maybe they didn't realise how you felt."

Rory shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it right now, it's probably about time I go and get something to eat anyway."

"Alright, well the girls and I are meeting in the library after for some more sign study, do you want in?"

Rory thought about it for a second and nodded. "Yeah, sorry I wasn't there before. Do you think I would still be welcome?"

Shiv laughed slightly. "Girl, of course, Tilly was really upset that you weren't there before and I know Lila was tossing up whether to teach you on your own or not, she thought maybe you were embarrassed to fail with the rest of us."

"What? No way, I like being around you girls and even though it's only been a couple of days, I already think we'll be good friends, especially since we're going to be spending so much time together and everything."

"Right then, we're going to head out now, we've all eaten, but feel free to join us whenever, we're going to be there a couple of hours so it will be good to see you."

She headed out of the dorm and Rory stood up, stretching her aching legs quickly as she flicked her plait over her shoulder and quickly pulled on one of her woollen jumpers, so she wouldn't be too cold as she walked to the Great Hall. She didn't necessarily want to eat anything, but she knew that she should get something now that he had somewhat committed to it.

As she reached the Great Hall, she was glad to see it was near the end of the breakfast run, and a lot of the other students were now out and about doing other things. She hoped it meant she wouldn't have to run into anyone, but as it turned out, Bill and Pez, who were sitting together at the Gryffindor table, had apparently decided on eating later than they normally did and they looked over at Rory as she entered the Great Hall and moved immediately over to the Hufflepuff table, not meeting their eyes.

Rory sat at the table and pulled a plate towards her, pulling some scrambled eggs and baked beans onto her plate alongside the toast as she continued to avert her gaze from the people she really wanted to talk to, only she didn't know how to bring it up. She could just walk over there and ask them what their deal was, but it was strange, and she hadn't spoken to them in two days now, so she wasn't sure if she would even be welcome to sit with them, or if they would even want to talk.

Being an eleven-year-old girl was tougher than some people thought, she had all these things she had to worry about and now on top of everything there was this whole thing about being a half blood and that her mother was a muggle. Did it even matter that her father was a muggleborn? This craziness with blood status meant nothing to her and she didn't think she would ever understand it. Just because both Pez and Bill seemed to be what people called Purebloods, that didn't make them better than her, nor did it really give them the right to assume that she wasn't as good as they were. True, she was worried that she wouldn't do any good in her classes, because this was magic they were doing, she had no basis for it and aside from a couple of really small things and they poltergeist she'd met already, she hadn't seen a lot of magic up close. She was worried it would be a little too much for her, but then, hadn't her father gone through this exact thing as well? She was sure she could do it eventually, id she tried, but would it be soon enough was the real question and could she do it alone, or would she be needing some support from people she could be friends with? Both were probably pretty likely.

A scraping across from her told her that she was no longer alone in her head and she looked up to see Pez seated in front of her with Bill standing next to Pez. Neither of them looked like they knew what to say, just that they wanted to say _something_.

"Rory…" It was Bill who spoke, he looked upset and Rory couldn't help but glare at him. She was mad at him more than Pez. He'd met her mother and Pez never had. He should have known better to watch what he said, or was that really what he'd thought of her mother? And of her? "Bill."

"Look, Rory… I think we might have… I don't know, gone a little over board the other day and I think we accidentally upset you."

"Oh, you think?" Rory asked, rolling her eyes. She didn't really have much time for empty remarks and late sorry, especially if they were going to start blaming this on her being sensitive, she wasn't here for that at all.

"Rory, can you please just let us talk to you for a second?" Asked Pez, holding her hands out in front of her. "We really didn't mean it, honestly."

Rory sighed and dropped her spoon. "But the point, Pez, is that you did mean it. Maybe you didn't mean for it to upset me, but you both meant what you said, about how this world is just going to constantly disrespect my mother and probably my father and that also means me. You have to understand that I come from a place where that's just not acceptable and I just can't put myself in a situation where it ever will be acceptable, you know? I can't just start letting it be okay."

Bill shook his head and finally sat down. "We don't expect you to, look, we're sorry that you took what we said to meant that we didn't respect you or your family, we do, remember what we talked about after we ran into Peeves?"-

Rory shrugged. She did remember, but she wanted Bill to remind her, if only so she knew that he actually had been paying attention to her at some point.

"I said you can always ask me anything, I also mean you can always tell me when I hurt your feelings. I really didn't mean it, Rory, we were just trying to explain to you how this works and I realise now that it might have come across badly for you, but that's just how it is, I'm sorry you don't like it, but there's nothing we can do about it."

Pez looked between Bill and Rory, who seemed to be in their own world as they stared at each other. All Rory could think about was the fact that his mother had met her mother and she'd seemed a little hesitant about it at the time then too. All the stuff about Pez being bullied by people in her house, it had to do with her being different to the rest of them, not raised how they had been if the conversation before the sorting ceremony had been any indication. It was all so tied together. "You guys don't understand, you're not listening to what I'm saying."

Pez sighed. "Rory, we hear, you, honestly we do,"

Rory wasn't sure she believed them, but she was willing to hear them out. "Look, I have somewhere to be right now, but, if you want, you can meet me after lunch. I was going to go see someone, finish my letter, but I don't see why I can't chat to you first."

Pez and Bill looked at each other and nodded. "That seems fair, where should we meet you?"

Rory shrugged. "The staircase is fine, the one leading to the kitchens, I need to go back to my dorm first anyway."

Bill and Pez didn't move as Rory got up with her plate in her hands and headed out of the hall to the library. She needed some time to think about how she was going to approach this if she was going to be helping them understand why they had been wrong. She wasn't sure how she was going to do that yet, but she hoped that being with the girls would give her some perspective and what Shiv had said to her earlier had helped a little, now she just needed to get them to understand why she had been so upset.


End file.
